A colourful career would be crowned in triplicate

INTERVIEW PAUL CARBERRY:THERE WILL be a lot of talk before today's Champion Hurdle about Go Native's chances of securing a million-euro Triple Crown bonus. But Paul Carberry's focus will be on a Triple Crown of a different kind.

National Hunt racing’s version of a Triple Crown can justifiably be narrowed down to the three peaks of the Champion Hurdle, Gold Cup and Grand National.

Victory in either one can define a jockey’s career, and Carberry, famously, already has a National under his belt.

But it is 11 years since Bobbyjo, and a career as colourful as Carberry’s might seem less than complete without another of the biggies added to the collection.

At 35, Carberry is closer to the exit than the entrance door which opened so memorably to the festival with Rhythm Section’s Bumper victory in 1993.

There is also that edgy sense of unpredictability that has characterised Carberry’s life out of the saddle for many years, but which took a darker hue earlier this winter when a second positive breathalyser test resulted in a 30-day ban and counselling for his use of alcohol.

The fun-loving persona so beloved by Irish race fans has seemed somewhat more sombre since, but, as Carberry himself says about today’s big race, “After the last few months, winning a Champion Hurdle would mean a lot.”

He’s not talking financially either – “I don’t feel any extra pressure because of the bonus” – even though after Go Native’s victories earlier this season in the Fighting Fifth and the Christmas Hurdle, there is an extra frisson to today’s race for the Noel Meade team.

With Carberry, though, there is a feeling that zero per cent of a zero pot would do him fine if it meant Go Native getting his head in front. He has, after all, something of a score to settle with this race.

It is five years since that famously controversial Champion Hurdle when Carberry sat motionless half way up the run-in on Harchibald only for the enigmatic horse to find precisely zip under pressure and fail to pass the tungsten-tough Hardy Eustace.

Flak puffed around the jockey’s ears for quite some time afterwards, much of it from the cosily anonymous sanctuary of internet chat-rooms, but enough from well-known faces also to make Carberry’s response seem even more brave – “I should have waited longer!”

For many, Go Native is Harchibald II, an impression only emphasised when last year’s Supreme winner only just hung on at Kempton over Christmas when appearing as if he would skate up jumping the last.

In his straight-forward fashion, Carberry doesn’t dismiss the comparison out of hand.

“It will be kind of the same. I will be riding a waiting race. But this horse will find more off it. He has more speed at the finish. Harchie had more of a cruising speed. They are both great jumpers. It’s just that Go Native has more gears at the end,” he says.

It’s a prospect that would keep some jockeys from their sleep, the need to wait, wait and then wait some more. As always, though, Carberry is a little bit different. If ever a ride was made for his nerveless mixture of horsemanship and cheek, then it is the challenge of Go Native in today’s big race.

And he has faith in a horse that began this season written off as something of a surprise Supreme winner.

“I really did fancy him last year. He showed me so much the day before at Naas that I had to,” he says.

Injury and that failed alcohol test meant Carberry missed out on the second leg of WBX’s Triple Crown.

But, happily, he is back for the leg that really counts.