Just as punters and pundits reached a collective decision to put a line through Paul Nicholls’ runners, the champion trainer’s luck turned and he found himself in the winner’s enclosure with a live Champion Hurdle contender. Landing the big Saturday race is by no means a new experience for Nicholls, but he was hoarse after shouting home Old Guard in the International for a victory that clearly meant quite a bit.
Nicholls had an astonishing run last winter when he had at least one winner every Saturday for four months but this season has been more of a slog. Old Guard was his last runner on Saturday and defeat would have meant three consecutive Saturdays without success, by no means a disaster but an unusually dry run for the powerful Somerset stable.
“We had too good a season last year, winning all those races,” Nicholls said, “and everyone expects it to happen every Saturday and it won’t. But to win one today like this is brilliant.”
This was supposed to be the race that anointed Peace And Co as Britain’s outstanding candidate for the Champion Hurdle here in March. Running for the first time since landing the Triumph at the last Festival, the four-year-old seemed overwhelmed by his own wellbeing and towed a protesting Daryl Jacob to the front after three hurdles in a style reminiscent of Dawn Approach’s reckless charge in the Derby two years ago.
It was no great surprise, especially on soft going, when he folded quickly at the turn for home but there may have been more to it than simple keenness. Jacob reported that the horse made a noise suggestive of a breathing problem.
Nicky Henderson, Peace And Co’s trainer, said the horse would be scoped but he seemed to accept that the horse’s behaviour was the key issue. “You can take that freshness out of him and we have to, he’s got to learn to switch off. He’s got ear plugs in … maybe he does need a bit more.”
It would be no great surprise if Peace And Co was tried in a hood at some point.
Having been an 8-1 shot for the Champion Hurdle, Peace And Co is now available at 20s and was taken out of Ladbrokes’ list altogether. Bookmakers responded conservatively to Old Guard, cutting him to 25-1 from 33s, no doubt noting that he had just a length to spare over Sempre Medici, from the Willie Mullins yard that has three stronger fancies at the head of the Champion betting.
“The price is irrelevant,” said Nicholls. “All those other horses, there’s plenty going to run between now and then. He’s got three in the bag, going the right way.” He plans to let Old Guard have a break before a trial race in February, possibly the Kingwell at his local Wincanton.
Richard Johnson sustained his relentless march to a first champion jump jockeys’ title with victory on Village Vic in the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup, improvising to front-running tactics after the horse flew the opening fences. In the stands, the winning trainer, Philip Hobbs, felt Johnson was doing too much in front but, with a flyweight of 10st on his back, Village Vic kept on strongly up the hill to comfortably beat his stablemate, Champagne West.
Johnson, who rarely boils himself down to such a low weight, cheerfully admitted to being quite hungry and looking forward to some takeaway food, his family having decamped on a skiing holiday. It would have been easier to ride Champagne West, who carried a stone more and started at the same odds of 8-1, but the runner-up is just starting his season with better days ahead, while Village Vic came here in hot form after two recent victories.
The jockey has now ridden 156 winners for the season, three more than he managed in the whole of the previous one, with four of the busiest months to come. “He’s been fantastic for years and with AP [McCoy] out the way, it makes life a lot easier,” Hobbs said. “Everybody’s been massively supportive. It’s amazing, all the trainers he’s been riding for that he’s not ridden for before.”
More Of That scored his second emphatic victory over the Cheltenham fences, prompting a notable statement of faith from his trainer, Jonjo O’Neill. Asked about the horse’s target at the March Festival, O’Neill suggested he might even make an entry for the Gold Cup. Coneygree won the last Gold Cup as a novice, but this season’s event looks especially hot. O’Neill was being playful but, pressed as to whether he would make the entry, replied soberly: “We’ll have to talk to the boys, really. But I wouldn’t be frightened to.”
