On the day Tony McCoy confirmed he will ride Carlingford Lough in his final Cheltenham Gold Cup, Jessica Harrington spoke of the pleasure it would give her if the champion jockey was aboard her stable star, Jezki, for the Champion Hurdle at next month’s Festival. McCoy spurned Jezki in favour of My Tent Or Yours in the race last year and was frustrated to find he had made the wrong choice, by a neck, but is expected to ride Harrington’s runner this time.
“Especially in his last year and his last Champion Hurdle, I’d love it,” the 67-year-old trainer said after watching Jezki winging along the uphill gallop at her base here in Kildare. “It’d be brilliant and I hope he [McCoy] wins all the big races from now until he retires because he has pushed the bar of endurance, everything to do with racing and riding beyond every limit there’s ever been before. It’d be a fairytale if he could win a couple of championship races at Cheltenham in his last year.
“He’s an amazing jockey. Jezki, he hasn’t ridden him that much. He rode him a couple of times last year and three times this year. He’s yet to win on him, I think, so I hope to God we’re going to break that duck at Cheltenham.”
In fact, McCoy has won three times aboard Jezki, including a Grade One at Punchestown last May, but they have also had four defeats together, while Barry Geraghty, aboard at Cheltenham last year, is unbeaten in five on Jezki. Some have speculated Geraghty’s quieter style might be a better fit for the horse but Harrington dismissed that. “If the horse is good enough, it doesn’t matter what the jockey is. The horse has got to be good enough on the day.”
Jezki has spent his winter chasing home Hurricane Fly at various venues but Harrington retains an unruffled faith that a return to Cheltenham and a bit of spring weather will produce a better performance. She left open the possibility of a change of headgear for the horse, who seemed to improve for wearing a hood for the first time in last year’s Champion.
Next year’s Festival appears likely to expand to include a 28th race, the identity of which is up for discussion. Suggestions have included a steeplechase for mares or a championship hurdles race at around two and a half miles, though many fear that could dilute the Champion Hurdle and the World Hurdle.
Cheltenham’s officials will kick various ideas around before making a decision during the summer. If a new race is created, as now seems to be the expected outcome, it will take the place of the charity race, which has raised £1.1m for cancer charities in the past four years. While appreciative of that achievement, those close to the course are ever mindful of the safety hazards of allowing amateur riders to compete around the famously demanding and undulating circuit.
Few changes are planned for this year’s Festival, since attentions are mostly focused on the construction of a new grandstand, which remains on schedule and will be partly in use for next month’s big week. Ticket sales are reportedly running 24,000 ahead of where they were at the equivalent date last year while officials say there will be a sponsor for every available Festival race for the first time in six years.
On the safety front, rubber matting has been put down on the area of the Best Mate enclosure on to which Daryl Jacob was pitched last year when his mount crashed into a running rail. A repeat of that freak incident appears most unlikely but racecourse staff felt it was better to act than not.
