O'Dwyer walks on with hope

Conor O'Dwyer sits back and discusses the value of confidence. It's riveting stuff, all this confidence talk. It's just that the last thing he looks like he should be talking about is confidence.

Naturally with Youlneverwalkalone a white hot hope in the Capel Cure Sharp Supreme Novices' Hurdle and Native Upmanship an only marginally less sizzling proposition for Wednesday's SunAlliance Chase, O'Dwyer's opinions are in demand.

It's just that The Irish Times chose to ask for those opinions less than 24 hours after the Gold Cup-winning rider had had the sort of tumble at Downpatrick that headline writers screamingly describe as "horror fall".

The 25 to 1 shot Miss Divin had led the field to the first flight of a maiden hurdle, suddenly decided she didn't want to jump it, slammed on the brakes and O'Dwyer sailed over the obstacle on his own. Then the 14 other runners galloped over him.

The immediate result is a swollen and multi-coloured right eye, a left hand that's so swollen it looks like somebody took a lump hammer to it, assorted sore ribs and a wonky right knee. Oh, and four stitches inside his upper lip.

O'Dwyer crams a couple of biscuits past the stitches and painfully grins "fire away" in reply to assurances that this can wait. How does he deal with the persistent bombardment of questions about his Cheltenham chances even when out for a quiet drink on the run up to the Festival. "It gets to everybody at times I guess but if you're approached, you can't just say `f*** off, I'm on a night off.' You can't be ignorant to people - it's their game as much as ours," he argues before concluding: "It would be a damn sight worse if you weren't getting it."

O'Dwyer, who will be 34 next month, always got attention but since that momentous Gold Cup success on Imperial Call in 1996 it's been a different kind of attention.

Whereas before he travelled to the Festival just happy to be there, he has since gone there with regularly realistic hopes of winning again. Never more so than now on the back of a remarkable run of success that has put him on the verge of a first riders' championship.

"Imperial Call was so important. For instance before I rode for Kim Bailey in England, I met him in a hotel in London and I was Conor O'Dwyer who'd won the Gold Cup. If I hadn't done that, Kim would have been going who the f*** are you.

"I've no doubt 50 per cent of riders are every bit as good as myself, Carberry, Geraghty or whoever, but they just don't get the breaks. I remember Charlie (Swan) was supposed to ride Imperial Call in the Hennessy but was claimed for Life Of A Lord and I got on. If I hadn't I'd have ridden my winners and tootled along but he took me to a different level," O'Dwyer argues.

All the more remarkable then that the rider suffered his greatest Cheltenham let down just the day before the Gold Cup. "Thoughts of winning with Imperial Call were not on my mind. I know he'd won the Hennessy but to me it wasn't good enough and he was still a novice. The disappointment was when New Co was beaten in the Coral Cup the day before. I'd thought that was my one chance to ride a winner," he remembers.

Imperial Call opened doors but O'Dwyer hasn't hesitated to storm through and take his chances. The result of his links with Arthur Moore and Christy Roche's string means that no rider goes to the Festival in hotter form.

"It's been such a roll. Normally one or two trebles in a season is brilliant for me but I've had four in six weeks and even when I had a double there was a feeling of `what the hell, it's a double,"' he laughs. And the result is confidence.

"Confidence is everything, to feel that nothing can go wrong. You go for a gap in a race and you just know it's going to open. You're going down the backstretch and saying to yourself `no hassle!' But if you haven't ridden a winner in a month, you end up pulling out, getting knocked down and nothing happens," O'Dwyer says.

The latter scenario is not the most desirable frame of mind to enter the Cheltenham cauldron with. O'Dwyer insists he has never felt undue pressure at the festival and he relishes the atmosphere.

Nobody will be more switched on than O'Dwyer when the tapes go up for the Supreme Novices' because apart from the scarily short-priced Istabraq, Youlneverwalkalone is as close to an Irish banker as will be running at Cheltenham.

The jockey has been totally impressed by the continued progress of JP McManus's unbeaten youngster and ranks him alongside any horse he has ever ridden. But experience has thought him to be circumspect. There are no headline-grabbing remarks along the lines of definitely the best he has ever ridden.

"At this stage of his career he is definitely as talented an animal I've ever sat on, definitely." O'Dwyer considers before remembering his experience on another McManus horse, Joe Mac, in the 1998 Bumper.

"I was pretty gutted when he was beaten and so it seemed were half the country. Joe Mac had serious pace. He could have worked with any decent flat horse but the hill got him. Before that I'd have said Joe Mac was as good as I'd ridden but he wasn't. A good horse won't be found out by the hill. And nobody knows until they've tried it," he says.

"Youlneverwalkalone has lots of pace as well. Even at home, when Grimes is flying, yer man would have him for gears. He seems to get the trip well, he jumps well, he's laid back and hills don't seem to matter. At the minute he doesn't seem to have any flaws, but then I'd have said the same about Joe Mac.

"But this lad seems a totally different sort of horse. He's a bigger, better type that should go on whereas Joe Mac needed good ground and a flat two miles. Everything had to be right for Joe but this fellah's different," O'Dwyer claims before addressing those who query the value of the horse's last piece of form.

"Yeah, the form worked out desperate but it was a true run race and he has absolutely slaughtered them. Turning in at Leopardstown, I took a pull, put him up the inside, made it hard for him but he still went to the last cruising. I thought he was a certainty that day but I also thought he'd have to work for it. He didn't," he states.

Almost despite himself, he appears to have been wooed by the precocious talent of Youlneverwalkalone. The steadier and more stately steeplechaser Native Upmanship has been less flamboyant in the run up to Cheltenham but goes for the SunAlliance Chase with a realistic chance of winning too. At this stage, it's greed to ask for more.

"I'd have loved him to have had a real race at Leopardstown but the pace was too slow. That didn't suit him any more than any of the others but I would still have liked him to have had a better test. Over there, they can't wait to get away from the tape.

"I'm not particularly worried about the SunAlliance trip but there must be some reservations. He did win over two and a half over hurdles but this is an extra five furlongs. Having said that, apart from Gloria Victis I don't think anything in England has stood out and we look to have a strong team with Native Upmanship and Alexander Banquet," he declares.

Apart from the "big two," O'Dwyer also hopes to have about six other rides at the Festival. "Bits and pieces in handicaps," he explains. Yet such is his current form, one respected worthy of the Irish press corps has backed him at 50 to 1 to be the leading jockey at Cheltenham.

"Money gone!" he laughs when informed. But that's O'Dwyer's way. He's confident but it's a quiet confidence. The sort that Youlneverwalkalone, Native Upmanship and the bits and pieces will thrive on. Maybe the money isn't gone yet.

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