The chance to right an old wrong is presented to the jockey Jerry McGrath on Saturday, when he gets a shot at the biggest success of his career in the BetVictor Gold Cup aboard the favourite, Rather Be. The pair were edged out in a photo at the Cheltenham Festival in March but the betting market fancies their chance of revenge over Mister Whitaker.
“They keep showing replays of the Cheltenham run on TV,” said McGrath between races at Bangor on Wednesday. “I still can’t let that go. But hopefully we’ll try and make amends for it.
“I had Rocklander on my inside and I won the battle with him, only for Mister Whitaker to come up on my outside and give me another battle. I probably used up a bit too much petrol trying to beat the horse on my inside. Then again, it’s Cheltenham, so you do just throw the kitchen sink at them. It’s just, I’d have preferred if Mister Whitaker had gone on and won by a length and a half. The fact it went down to a photo, it’s hard to let go.”
Long established as one of Nicky Henderson’s jockeys, the 27-year-old McGrath is in fine form, picking up some plum rides during the absence of Nico de Boinville through a thumb injury. He relished victory in Wincanton’s Elite Hurdle aboard the very speedy Verdana Blue last weekend and Rather Be gives him a rare chance of TV glory on consecutive Saturdays.
“I’m really looking forward to him. He’s taken a while to come to hand but I schooled a few last Thursday and he was the one that put the biggest smile on my face, he was brilliant.”
A native of Waterfall, County Cork, McGrath was raised around horses on his father’s farm but didn’t sit on a racehorse until he was 15, when the speed and danger of jump racing lured him away from the show jumping path he’d been following. He first rode for Henderson eight years ago and is grateful for the array of talent at the Lambourn yard, which means he can ride top-class horses at the secondary race-meetings even when De Boinville is fit.
“You have to be realistic too,” he says, recalling last year’s BetVictor, in which his mount was unsighted at the first and fell, causing McGrath to break an arm. “You need a lot of luck in running. But we’re going there with a good chance.”
