IN KEEPING with the times, the 2010 Cheltenham festival began with the collapse of a so-called “banker”.
With no apparent sense of irony, racing people still use the B-word to describe a sure thing. And apart from some concerns about his jumping, Irish-trained Dunguib looked like the Goldman Sachs of this year’s meeting, attracting vast amounts of public money and starting odds-on favourite.
Sadly, his Triple-A rating was in trouble well before the finish of the Supreme Novices Hurdle and, by the end, his reputation had suffered what economists call a “haircut”. He was by no means disgraced in the process, hanging on for third place and a prize of £9,000. So at least his owners had something to cheer about. But as tends to happen with bankers these days, it was the punters who lost their shirts.
It was apt yesterday that, this year, the racecourse is overlooked by a giant advertisement for bookmakers Paddy Power. In the style of the famous Hollywood sign – except even bigger – the company has spelt its name in 50ft-high letters strung across an 80-metre stretch of Cleeve Hill: in the process claiming a world record for the size of a billboard. And the name was written all over the festival’s opening day in more ways than one.
Even by the standards of loss-leading promotions, it had seemed uncharacteristically generous when Power offered to refund all the losing bets in the race if Dunguib triumphed. But surprise, surprise, fears over the company’s potential losses on the transaction were unfounded.
Even after paying out on the well-backed English winner, the bookies were laughing all the way to their mattresses, or wherever it is they keep their savings these days.
The biggest Irish losers of day one were not, as it happened, the owners or backers of Dunguib. Their losses paled alongside the £1 million bonus that had been waved for several months under the noses of everyone involved with the Noel Meade-trained Go Native, before vanishing in the space of a few minutes yesterday afternoon. By winning at Kempton on St Stephen’s Day, the horse had secured the second leg of a “Triple Crown” for which sponsors had put up the special prize. The third leg was yesterday’s big race, the Champion Hurdle. And as if there wasn’t enough hanging on the result already, punters also made Go Native the hot favourite. So of course there could be only one result.
The horse trailed in 10th, as the owners (£700,000), the trainer (£150,000), the stable lad (£100,000), and the rest of the stable staff (£50,000) all saw their shares of the million disappear.
Paddy aside, there is a power vacuum at Cheltenham 2010. With Martin Cullen’s retirement, there was no Minister for Sport at the traditional Tuesday media briefing by Horse Racing Ireland. And in general, Irish politicians now appear to be a threatened species here. Certainly, the days when you could have found a quorum for an emergency cabinet meeting in the parade ring seem to be gone.
Charlie McCreevy – also now retired – looked like the last of the Mohicans when he emerged to watch Dunguib in action. In fact, he’s not quite the last; the equally retired Joe Walsh, another Cheltenham diehard, is here too. But like everyone else, Mr McCreevy was caught up in the four-legged banking drama.
No doubt chastened by his years as minister for finance, he erred on the side of caution this time. “I want him to win, but I think I’ll just cheer for him,” he said, as Dunguib paraded past. “I don’t think I’ll back him at those odds.” It was a wise decision.
There were three Irish winners yesterday, although as is often the case at Cheltenham, they weren’t necessarily the right ones for most of the travelling punters. The exception was the only obliging favourite of the day, Quevega. Trained by Willie Mullins, ridden by Ruby Walsh, and a winner here for the second year running, the horse had banking credentials in her own right, as her 6/4 price showed. But even this carried an echo of the economic times. Quevega is owned by the so-called Hammer Trowel syndicate, based in Co Kildare. And despite being £50,000 richer after the race, the connections were still managing to sound gloomy.
Asked to describe the owners, a spokesman said they were “a couple of hard-up builders from Clane”.