River Flows To Gold Cup Glory

CHELTENHAM, UK—Irish challengers may have dominated this year's Cheltenham Festival but the trophies for all three championship races will stay at home after Brocade Racing's Native River (Ire) (Indian River {Fr}) denied a Nicky Henderson clean sweep when outclassing favourite Might Bite (Ire) (Scorpion {Ire}) to give trainer Colin Tizzard his first G1 Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Yet more overnight rain overnight had turned the already testing conditions into a slog, and three non-runners reduced the field to 15, but from the early stages the race quickly became a duel as Richard Johnson took to the front from the off on Native River and rode with no intention of ceding that position.

He may be champion jockey but Johnson had been all but invisible this week at Cheltenham. When it mattered most, however, he grabbed his chance to shine, his 8-year-old mount proving the perfect ally for a test that demanded foot-perfect jumping and an unrelenting gallop throughout. Charged with delivering Henderson's dream of an unprecedented hat-trick in the week's trio of big races, Nico de Boinville shadowed Native River throughout on the King George winner, with Might Bite just briefly gaining the upper hand at the penultimate fence. But the horse who had previously shown his mettle by winning the famously grueling Welsh Grand National hadn't even begun to get to the bottom of his stamina reserves and as others found finishing kicks swamped by the mud, Native River dug deep to regain the advantage over the one final obstacle which stood in his path for glory.

“To be honest, I was a passenger,” said Johnson, whose modesty is as much his trademark as is his unquestionable skill in the saddle.

“He's a fantastic horse to ride. He loves jumping and almost waits for things in front and just does what he has to. I thought we had gone quite steady but sometimes when you are on a good horse it doesn't feel that quick, and I thought I needed to move it on a gear down the back straight and the more I asked from him, the better he jumped.”

He continued, “From four out he just kept picking up. I could see Might Bite next to me and going to two fences out he looked to be travelling quite well, but I knew Native River is a stayer and I felt we had to try to give him as much to do as possible. He answered every call and at the last he was very brave. Up the run-in he just kept going. I'm not sure we will see such testing conditions again at Cheltenham, but he's a warrior and it's a pleasure to ride him.”

Colin Tizzard has long since turned his attention from dairy farming to training and the West Countryman now has one of the most powerful stables of jumpers in the UK. However, like so many of his colleagues throughout the first three days of the Festival he simply had no riposte to the relentless form of the runners from the rival Irish yards of Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott. His luck changed come Friday, with 19-year-old Harry Cobden starring at Cheltenham for the first time to win the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle aboard 33/1 shot Kilbricken Storm (Ire) (Oscar {Ire}) to set up a quickfire Grade 1 double for Tizzard.

Unsuccessfully fending off tears after the Gold Cup, the trainer said, “I first came here as a 17-year-old with hair down to my shoulders and watched the Gold Cup from the middle of the course. To have a runner in it would have been fantastic then but to win it is unbelievable. Richard Johnson was every bit as good as the horse.”

Tizzard has had his chances in the race, with the massively popular dual Festival winner Cue Card (GB) (King's Theatre {Ire}) having twice fallen, while Native River was third to Sizing John (GB) (Midnight Legend {GB}) last year and has run just once since then, when winning at Newbury on Feb. 10.

He added, “It's unreal. It's the fourth day and the Irish have been winning everything—I was thinking our form is not as good as we imagined. Then Richard Johnson gives that brave horse that sort of ride and everything changes. When Might Bite came alongside, I thought 'oh, no', but then Richard was brilliant. You wouldn't tell him what to do, because he knew what he was going to do a week ago.”

Richard Johnson last won the Gold Cup back in 2000 aboard Looks Like Trouble (Ire) (Zaffaran). Now 26, the grand old chaser still lives with the jockey and his wife Fiona, whose father Noel Chance trained him, as well as the 1997 winner Mr Mulligan (Ire) (Torus {GB}).

“It's been a long 18 years,” said Johnson with a grin. “For me the Gold Cup is the most important race of the year. I know for some people the Grand National is the people's race, but this is the best of the best. It's everyone's dream to own a Gold Cup horse and to ride one is brilliant; to win it twice now is fantastic. The championship has always been my main target but when you can have one or two of these along the way, they are very special.

“It is always down to the horse. If you are on the right horse and get into the right rhythm, it makes riding from the front almost easier as there is nothing to get in your way.”

Gordon Elliott's Outlander (Ire) was pulled up two fences from home in the Gold Cup but that did little to dent his supremacy at the 2018 Cheltenham Festival. The trainer saddled another two winners on the final day—Farclas (Fr) (Jukebox Jury {Ire}) in the G1 JCB Triumph Hurdle and Blow By Blow (Ire) (Robin Des Champs {Fr}) in the Martin Pipe Conditionals' Hurdle—to lead the Festival for the second year running, his eight winners equalling the record held by Willie Mullins. Elliott's final-day double again came in the colours of Gigginstown House Stud, making Michael O'Leary the leading owner at the Festival with seven wins.

The remainder of the card fell to British stables, with Paul Nicholls—for so many years the leading trainer at this event in the glory days of Kauto Star (Fr) and Denman (Ire)—winning the St James's Place Foxhunter for the second year running with Pacha Du Polder (Fr) (Muthathir {GB}), ridden by Cheltenham debutante Harriet Tucker. Nicholls also claimed the final race of the meeting, the G3 Johnny Henderson Grand Annual with Le Prezien (Fr) (Blue Bresil {Fr}) to give JP McManus a second win of the week to add to his Champion Hurdle trophy.

Nicholls's former assistant Dan Skelton has turned Shadwell's dual Flat winner Mohaayed (GB) (Intikhab) into a fine hurdler but the trainer admitted that he had wanted to withdraw the 6-year-old from the G3 Randox Health County Hurdle fearing that the ground had gone against him. As it transpired, owner June Watts's desire to run meant that Skelton, the son of Olympic champion showjumper Nick Skelton, notched his second win in the race, though his brother and retained jockey Harry missed out on glory having swapped on to the stable's first string, Spiritofthegames (Ire) (Darsi {Fr}). Harry's loss was his girlfriend's gain, however, as his defection meant that Bridget Andrews rode her first Cheltenham winner, emulating her sister Gina, who won last year's Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Chase on Domesday Book. Andrews was one of four female jockeys to win at the 2018 Festival along with Lizzie Kelly and the amateur riders Katie Walsh and Harriet Tucker.