Don't miss the 2021 Grand National!

Just my opinion of course, but last years 'Virtual Grand National' was virtually unwatchable. There is something about actually watching the cream of the crop of racing, and all of the emotion and effort that's poured into that one moment, that is missing from a parade of pixels. Even in this age of gaming, I'm not convinced that many thought that it in any way compared to the real thing.

This year we have an especially short favourite, the Jonjo O'Neill trained Cloth Cap. It makes for an interesting scenario as the racing public appear to have gone 'all in' in a race that can throw up more surprises than just about any other. Still, it's interesting to have these 'narratives' writing themselves as it creates quite the story no matter the outcome.

As with all Grand Nationals, millions will be tuning in at home, but sadly on this occasion crowds will be absent. We can only hope that next year more normality has returned, while simultaneously counting our blessings for how far we've come this year. In preparation for the Grand National Betway present a short, yet absorbing segment on women jockeys trials and tribulations in the race.

Cheltenham Festival 2021 Quiz

If there's one event on the racing calendar that I'd be sorry to miss, it just has to be the Cheltenham Festival. With so much history wrapped around this jewel in the national hunt crown, and it being a gathering point for the top horses, jockeys, trainers and owners around; we can safely call it an unmissable event. The likes of A Plus Tard, Al Boum Photo and Native River will all be part of the action this year. To celebrate this unrivalled Festival of racing, it's time to switch it up with an entertaining Betway Horse Racing  quiz featuring Richard Hoiles and members of the West Ham team. Let's see how much they know about racing!

Al Boum Photo: Dual Gold Cup Winner in Profile

Irish trainer Willie Mullins has had plenty of luck with French-bred horses. A regular to France on scouting missions, Mullins has been part of lots of deals for French imports to train at his Closutton operation. It has clearly been a fruitful enterprise for Mullins, with the likes of six-time Cheltenham Festival winner Quevega, Arkle winner Douvan and Ryanair Chase winner Un De Sceaux heading from France to Ireland, and, ultimately, success at Cheltenham. You can add many others – Vroum Vroum Mag, Vautour, Min – to that list. The Racing Post terms it a “pipeline of success flowing between Chantilly and Clossuton.”.

But if you weigh up the recent Cheltenham Festival race results, you’d have to say that Al Boum Photo tops the lot of Mullins’ French-bred superstars. A two-time winner of the Gold Cup, and the hot-favourite for his third in just under two weeks’ time, Al Boum Photo could even eclipse Quevega as Mullins’ best French discovery.

However, Al Boum Photo is a curious horse. He is superb, of course – you can’t win two Gold Cups without being special. But he perhaps does not get the respect afforded to others who join him on the list as multiple Gold Cup winners. For instance, even though he might go one better than Kauto Star this year, there are few who rate Al Boum Photo ahead of Paul Nicholls’ beloved two-time Gold Cup winner.

Al Boum Photo is lightly raced

So why the low-key profile? Perhaps it’s down to how lightly-raced Al Boum Photo has been over the last few years. Kauto Star, for instance, was also a five-time King George VI Chase winner, whereas Al Boum Photo has never appeared in the race. In fact, you rarely see Al Boum Photo at all. He has run just four races since winning his first Gold Cup in 2019, including the 2020 renewal.

Mullins tends to take him out for the Savills Chase each January, a Grade 3 in Tramore that acts as little more than a workout for Al Boum Photo. The trainer then puts him away until Cheltenham, where he is fresh for his tilt at the big one.

Townend rode horse to first Gold Cup success

And that probably gets to the heart of Al Boum Photo and his reputation. His career was fine before the Gold Cup win in 2019. He had appeared at Cheltenham before, falling in the RSA Novices’ Chase in 2018 with Ruby Walsh in the saddle. Walsh, DJ Mullins and Paul Townend all rode him throughout 2017 and 2018, picking up a couple of Grade 1s in Ireland. But the constant changing of jockey suggested that he wasn’t the pick of Mullins’ stable at that time.

While the 2019 Gold Cup win under Townend wasn’t a shock – the horse had an SP of 12/1 – it was still a mild surprise. Al Boum Photo hasn’t looked back since. But he is perhaps beneficiary of Mullins’ nous as much as his own talent. You get the sense that Mullins has promised his owners that he will deliver Gold Cups, and little else manners. He is playing the percentage game.

Al Boum Photo’s reputation will perhaps not be helped by the fact that there is a lot of question marks over the field at this year’s Gold Cup. Many of the established horses, like Santini and Lostintranslation, have been in a terrible run of form. The likes of Royal Pagaille and A Plus Tard are untested at this level. So, if he wins, he’ll be a hat-trick hero, a history-maker. But the sense is that he won’t be venerated alongside the likes of Arkle, Best Mate and Kauto Star.

Yeats

These days, Yeats, who was retired from racing in October, 2009, stands at Castlehyde Stud, Co. Cork, where he commands a stud fee of €5,000. Granted his exceptional sire, Sadler’s Wells, and his own exceptional ability, it’s no real surprise that he’s garnering a reputation as a sire of top-class jumpers.

Owned by Mrs. John Magnier and Mrs. David Nagle and trained by Aidan O’Brien at Ballydoyle, Co. Tipperary, Yeats is best remembered for winning the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot an unprecedented four times in a row, in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. He was also, unsurprisingly, named Cartier Stayer in each of those years but, in a lengthy career spanning six seasons, he won 15 of his 26 races, including seven Group 1 races, and earned over £1.3 million in prize money.

Although he ultimately made his name as an out-and-out stayer, it is, perhaps worth remembering that Yeats won his maiden over a mile at the Curragh on his sole start as a juvenile and the Ballysax Stakes and the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial, both over 1 mile 2 furlongs, at Leopardstown as a three-year-old. Indeed, he was a leading fancy for Derby proper in 2004, before injury ruled him out for the rest of the season.

When he returned, after nearly a year off, he was beaten, at odds-on, in the High Chapparal EBF Moorsbridge Stakes at the Curragh, but clearly detested the heavy going and wasn’t beaten up by Kieron Fallon once it was clear he was making no impression in the closing stages. Indeed, Yeats showed the benefit of that tender handling in the Coronation Cup at Epsom the following month, making all to win unchallenged a record his first win at the highest level. Aidan O’Brien admitted afterwards, “I might have over-trained him for the Derby last year, which could have brought on his problems, and we learned a lot from that.”

Yeats didn’t win again until stepped up to 2 miles 4 furlongs for the first time in the Gold Cup at Ascot the following June, but the rest, as they say, is history. Following his fourth, and final, win in the Gold Cup three years later, winning jockey Johnny Murtagh said, tearfully, “It's one of the greatest days of my life in racing. Yeats is everything positive about racing.”