THE F E S T I VAL™ 15-18 MARCH 2022 DAY
FOUR ONE TWO THREE Every headline act needs a good supporting cast and if Cheltenham Gold Cup Day is the big hitter of The Festival™, then there couldn’t be a better precursor than action-packed ‘St Patrick’s Thursday’ A ny regular Cheltenham-goer will tell you that four-days of extraordinary simplywould not be as extraordinarywithout Irish Stayers’ Hurdle. Taking place one after the other in quick succession this means that the only people busier than the bar staff in the Guinness Village maybe an hour before and in fairness to Jonathan Moore he gave me every little bit of information he had about the horse. Credit to him as he knewhewasn’t in
good shape in the morning and that’s the mark of a great man thatwants everything to gowell. I’d say two per cent of the success is down to me and 98 per cent is Jonny, Gavin and all the team.” Flooring Porterwill be back to defend his crown, though itwould be some story if hewas thwarted by the 2019 hero Paisley Park, who looked back to his very bestwhen sealing an emotional success for Aidan Coleman and Emma Lavelle here on Festival Trials Day in January. The supporting Grade One Turners Novices’ Chase and the Grade Two Parnell Properties Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle will offer plenty of chances for Britain to exact equine revenge over the Irish contingent.Win, lose or draw though, day three of the 2022 Cheltenham Festival is definitely St Patrick’s Day.
are the jockeys themselves. Allaho produced one of the
participation both on and off the track and day three of The Festival™ is one big celebration of that. It does not always fall on St Patrick’s Day, of course, though it does in 2022 and this special moment has a line-up to match, with two ‘Championship’ races on the card. Both the Ryanair Chase and the Paddy Power Stayers’ Hurdle have a distinctly Irish feel to them too, both being sponsored by businesses across thewater that have loyally supported The Festival™ for years. With 23 of last year’s 28 Festival winners coming from Irish yards, Britain’s trainers will be determined not to let their Irish counterparts stomp all over them in quite the same fashion ever again. However, it is hard to see how such superiority can be reversedwithin 12 months and Thursday of The Festival™ usually gives thosewho follow the standings for the Prestbury Cup – the week-long British versus Irish competition – a good feel forwhere the trophymight be heading. Thursday’s card is unique in that it is the only one across the four days to feature two ‘Championship’ races, the Ryanair Chase and the Paddy Power
performances of last year’s Festival whenwinning the Ryanair Chase by some 12 lengths last year under Rachael Blackmore, but the story of the day camewhen a lesser-known trainer in Gavin Cromwell watched his Flooring Porter sweep to Paddy Power Stayer Hurdle glory. The seven-year-old made every single yardwith a swashbuckling display, made even more remarkable by the fact that his jockey DannyMullins was an 11th-hour stand-in after the desperately unlucky Jonathan Moore had stood himself down due to injury. The rest, as they say, is history and Mullins could barely believe that he had ridden his first ever Festival winner. He beamed: “It’s fantastic. I got the call-up
“THURSDAY’S CARD IS UNIQUE INTHAT IT ISTHEONLYONEACROSS ALL FOURDAYSTOFEATURETWO CHAMPIONSHIPRACES”
28 THE F E S T I VAL TM PREV I EW MAGAZ I NE
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