Gold Cup: Brian O'Connor talks to Beef Or Salmon trainer Michael Hourigan on his next attempt on the Gold Cup.
Next week Michael Hourigan will once more put himself through the emotional wringer. Not for the first time, the Co Limerick trainer is in charge of a major Irish hope for glory in Friday's Gold Cup. In the past, the most important steeplechase of them all has promised much and delivered little. But Hourigan's stomach-churning chore will happen 48 hours before the tape goes up.
A horse's "scope" is one of those increasingly familiar phrases that race fans recognise only too well and yet most know very little about. A long tube is put into the animal's nostril and sent on a mission to find out what bugs might be lying in wait down his lungs.
It doesn't sound too pleasant, and isn't a picnic for the horse either, but for the last six months what these tubes are telling vets has resulted in stamp-up-and-down frustration for trainers throughout these islands. At no point will nerves be strung tighter than in the next week.
"It's been a nightmare this year to be healthy," says Hourigan. "I've had quite a few horses run in the Gold Cup but it has been tougher this time because this mucus stuff has been all over the place. Every time you check a horse out it's heart-in-mouth time. It's frightening really. You're just waiting for the guy to say something as he's withdrawing the scope from their lungs and he knows straight away. Depending on what he says you can be left with your hands hanging."
That is not something Hourigan is used to in the Gold Cup. But carrying Irish hopes is a role he has got used to. For three years running (1997-99) Dorans Pride flew the flag and notched up a pair of third-place finishes. This time Beef Or Salmon has his own third attempt on the great race and is surely on the brink of doing better than last year's fourth.
It's a seductive thought whose talons Hourigan is managing to repel for the moment. Cheltenham has taught him not to be presumptuous.
Beef Or Salmon's third-fence exit in the 2003 Gold Cup was a thunderous anti-climax, because Hourigan genuinely believed the then novice had it well within him to overpower the reigning champion, Best Mate. But he can also still remember the bitter taste left by Dorans Pride's last attempt at the championship.
"I was very disappointed the year he ran bad. I knew I had him in great order going in, but then there was a change of plan about how he should be ridden. He'd won the Hennessy from the front, and then it was decided he should make all in the Gold Cup too. It wasn't my idea. You don't make the running and expect to be in front after three and a quarter miles. He ended up walking home," he recalls.
It was Dorans Pride that yielded the high of that 1995 Stayers Hurdle success and the appalling low of his fatal fall two years ago. In fact, reading the emotional graph of it all could result in a cricked neck. But Hourigan isn't finished with the place yet.
Not by a long way.
"If Beef Or Salmon could run so well last year off an interrupted preparation, then he really should be able to do a lot better now. But that's only theory. You can make all the excuses in the world but they are of no use at all," he argues, before the man's innate optimism takes over.
"I know I have a good horse. He has done a lot in his short career to date to prove that. But you need luck, and this year you need health. If we get both this could just be his year."
It's now part of the Gold Cup legend that the three previous years have belonged to Best Mate, but, encouraged by Beef Or Salmon's Christmas defeat of the champion in the Lexus Chase, Hourigan is far from frightened at the idea of taking anyone on. Respectful yes, but not worried.
"There are about five or six there who can win. Kingscliff, for instance, won't be out of it, and his stable companion, Sir Rembrandt, is a fair horse too," he surmises.
"Celestial Gold I think is too far out of the handicap. He has to improve about 20lb on the book. I don't think Therealbandit will stay, and Strong Flow won the Hennessy last season when he was carrying 10.6. I had Native Performance in that race on 10st and he hated the ground. What would Beef Or Salmon have done off 10.6?"
What he might have done for most of last season is one of those terrible "what if" situations since the legacy of that Gold Cup fall nagged at Beef Or Salmon's muscles and bones almost throughout.
But the routine of constantly exercising that creaky body and keeping it supple is now down pat. It's been an experience for a man who in the past has never been exactly famous for possessing oceans of self-doubt.
"That was a horrendous fall he took in the Gold Cup and I've learned a lot from it. What we do now is routine with him, every week," he says.
"Everyone is going down the physio road now anyway, so why not animals? When it comes down to it, there isn't much difference between horses and humans. Brian O'Driscoll probably gets physio every day. It's just that horses can't tell you what's hurting them."
Timmy Murphy blamed himself for that Gold Cup fall two years ago, but it is Paul Carberry who will again be in the hot seat on Friday. Murphy's commitment to the Martin Pipe yard saw him lose out to Carberry at Christmas and in the Hennessy last month.
Hourigan's role in Murphy's return to the top of the tree has been well documented, but three and a quarter miles around Cheltenham has a way of dispensing with sentiment.
"Either one would do me. They are two very good riders. I suppose Paul can be a little bit more aggressive than Timmy, but then when it comes to dropping one out there are few better.
"Over the trip I don't think we will be forcing anything. Beef Or Salmon has so much toe that it would be a shame to use it when you don't need to. And we know he can settle a race in a matter of strides," he says.
It's that burst of acceleration that did for an admittedly ailing Best Mate at Christmas and what Hourigan, and all those hoping for a first Irish success in the race since Imperial Call nine years ago, will hope for is that Carberry can guide Beef Or Salmon into a position whereby he can use it.
If he can, then it will be worth travelling a long way to see what happens. Typically, though, the man at the centre of it all is determined to keep everything in perspective.
"I've had my ups and downs at Cheltenham, but the important thing is to not fall down when things go wrong. It took me so long to get here that I can take the knocks, and when it's all over I'll look forward to Fairyhouse and Punchestown and the rest," he says.
"It's the same even when you win. You still have to pack your bags and f*** off home - and think of next year!"
All the same, stay healthy and lucky and there may not be a reason to think of 2006 for quite a while.
Gold Cup - Irish Angle
3.15 - CHELTENHAM GOLD CUP
Beef Or Salmon (M Hourigan) 5-1
Pizarro (E O'Grady) 25-1
Rule Supreme (W Mullins) 10-1
Kicking King (T Taaffe) 7-1
Best Mate's defection has thrown steeplechasing's blue riband wide open, and the tantalising thought is that Beef Or Salmon could now be in the sort of shape to win this race at the third time of asking. The Hourigan horse finally got the better of Best Mate in the Lexus and at his best he holds a major shout. Rule Supreme could skip this in favour of the World Hurdle, but if he does run, his jumping will come under a sort of strain he isn't used to. Jumping also looks an issue for Pizarro, who fell in the Hennessy. The shot-in-the-dark is Kicking King. The King George winner is up to winning, but what has been the impact of his bout with illness so close to the big day?
