Cheltenham delivers again as human stories and equine excellence reign for top jockeys

And mention of stick, after joining everyone else in sticking the boot in, I must give credit to the British Horseracing Authority. Though we won’t know for sure until next week, it doesn’t look like the new whip rules claimed many victims, and certainly not of the disqualification kind. That suggests they got it right. They need to sort out the starts though.

There were plenty of stories from the training ranks, and given the fantastic spread of winners, there are many to laud.

But praise and attention must also be paid to the jockeys, where the 28 races were claimed by 21 riders, 13 of whom are based in Ireland.

Eight of those got to drink in the ovation bellowing from the stands and through to the winner’s enclosure for the first time.

There’s been a lot about this season Liam McKenna would like to forget. Yet it has been, by some distance, the best of his life.

A first cousin of Tyrone All-Ireland winner and AFL star Conor, McKenna won the Galway Hurdle with the Tony Martin-trained Tudor City on his first ride of the season last August, having been out for three months after suffering nine fractures to his collarbone.

A month later, another fall left him with a broken eye socket and cheekbone.

Martin didn’t forget him though and that loyalty was rewarded as McKenna drew on the patience he had to utilise while sidelined, and that has sustained him through a career of graft with little enough reward. He was the last to play his hand as he delivered Good Time Jonny from the clouds to score in the Pertemps Final on Thursday.

In contrast to McKenna, Mark Walsh has sipped from the fountain of top-flight success on many occasions and is acknowledged as one of the best in the game. It looked for a long time as if the 36-year-old pilot would miss Cheltenham but he was ready for road just five weeks after breaking a vertebra in his neck.

The Clane jockey delivered the equally experienced 11-year-old Sire Du Berlais to a stunning late victory in the Stayers’ Hurdle for his boss JP McManus and trainer Gordon Elliott, his eighth victory at the Festival.

​He was back in an ambulance on Friday though, as Corbetts Cross ran out at the last hurdle when still vying for the lead in the Albert Bartlett. This sport would tame lions.

Brian Hayes has long been known as a good jockey, one of many that would soar if given the opportunity.

His girlfriend, Rachael Blackmore, has been doing just that in the last few years and it was typical racing irony that when he would break his Cheltenham duck on Colm Murphy’s gutsy novice Impervious in the Mares’ Chase, Blackmore’s Magic Daze planted her back legs and refused to leave the start.

Conditional jockey Michael O’Sullivan recorded a first-day double, making light of the pressure that went with owner-trainer Barry Connell telling everyone Marine Nationale would win the Supreme with a most uncomplicated ride to do just that.

In the process, the 22-year-old from Lombardstown, Co Cork with a third-level degree was following his father William and first cousin Maxine into the Cheltenham roll of honour.

Leaving Cert student John Gleeson, Darragh O’Keeffe, Pa King and Aidan Kelly are the others who will never forget the first time.

Word too for Paul Townend. It’s hard to get credit when you succeed with the best artillery, but you have to be able to use the resources available to you. He earned the job too, after a long apprenticeship to Ruby Walsh.

When El Fabiolo bolted up in the Arkle on Tuesday, it was the East Cork man’s 100th Grade One success and he is now on 104. Only Walsh (214) and Barry Geraghty (122) had broken the ton before him. Remarkably, they both scored their maiden elite triumph on the same horse, Alexander Banquet.

But there are ups and downs because not everything goes right. For anyone. In any sport. In any job. And multiply that by 10 in racing, where the nature of it is that even Willie Mullins and Aidan O’Brien lose a lot more than they win.

Mullins was critical of Townend in public after Lossiemouth’s defeat at the Dublin Racing Festival. High-performance standards are exacting, and Walsh had felt the sharp side of the champion trainer’s tongue in similar circumstances before. Be assured they have both gotten worse in private. That should never be mistaken for a lack of respect for or belief in his rider.

Appropriately, Townend was magnificent on Lossiemouth in the Triumph Hurdle and AP McCoy hailed his Gold Cup ride on Galopin Des Champs as “as brilliant a ride as I’ve ever seen in a horse race”. Most importantly, Mullins was equally glowing, pointing especially to his man’s excellence under pressure.

Obviously, Tuesday was an incredible day, which stands firm with the greatest days in Festival history.

That was the view of many seasoned and sober observers, and it would pass any testing system as worthy of a place on sport’s Everest.

Just 35 minutes after Constitution Hill mapped himself as a potential great with a jaw-dropping performance in the Champion Hurdle, the mare he succeeded, Honeysuckle, silenced the doubters and those who thought it would have been a better send-off to be third in a Champion Hurdle, by battling back to claim the Mares’ Hurdle a second time.

What a way to go into retirement, those victories book-ending a pair of Champion Hurdles.

Of course everyone was thinking of the De Bromhead family, given how much Honeysuckle meant to his son Jack, who died last year.

Quick word for Lydia Hislop here. Her interview with Henry, the winning trainer, was superb, perfect in tone and laced with empathy. As is invariably the case, the Racing TV reporter knocked it out of the park all week.

Also memorable on the same day were the tears shed by Janna Walsh as she led Dysart Dynamo away after the gelding had fallen in the Arkle Chase. These were not tears of disappointment though. These fell out of joy, probably of shock but most assuredly of cascading relief after contemplating the stomach-churning worst when her pride and joy failed to rise following his tired tumble and the screens were erected around him.

Fortunately, Dynamo was just winded, having raced with his usual heart-on-sleeve enthusiasm. Walsh gave him a bearhug when he rose after what seemed like an interminable wait, probably four or five minutes.

It tugged at the heartstrings just as much as Honey’s heroics did, a clear encapsulation of the truth that while every walk of life has bad eggs, the majority of racehorses are not just well cared for, they are loved.

No doubt about it. Cheltenham delivered.