Big Grade One win for Brennan but it’s not on Cue Card

IF Paddy Brennan was told beforehand that he was about to ride a Grade One winner at Kempton’s flagship meeting last Monday, the Galway jockey would have assumed a second King George on Cue Card was in the bag.

Kempton was hosting three Grade Ones, but Brennan didn’t have a ride in the Christmas Hurdle, while his mount in the Kauto Star Novices Chase was the 33/1 outsider of the ten-runner field.

But the uncertainty of racing was underlined when Royal Vacation, taking advantage of runaway leader Might Bite’s spectacular if avoidable fall at the last, had luck on his side in giving Brennan an unexpected winner.

Given that Royal Vacation is in the same ownership as Cue Card and is also trained by Colin Tizzard, Brennan must have thought that it was a good omen for Cue Card’s chances in the featured King George.

Having won the Betfair Chase for a third time at Haydock in November, the popular ten-year-old was sent off at restrictive odds of 5/4, but still wasn’t favourite due to the burgeoning reputation of stablemate Thistlecrack.

Last season’s emphatic World Hurdle winner at the Cheltenham festival, Thistlecrack was sent off at odds of 11/10 in striving to become the first novice to ever land the highlight of the cross-channel Christmas racing programme.

With only three previous runs over fences, there was a strong school of thought that Thistlecrack’s inexperience would be laid bare in a race of the King George’s traditional competitiveness, but the doubters were wrong.

Instead, chasing’s newest star galloped and jumped his rivals into submission under Tom Scudamore. Thistlecrack was being heavily eased coming to the line as Cue Card just held on for second from twice-previous winner, Silviniaco Conti.

Brennan made no excuses for his horse’s demise afterwards. “Maybe, the ground was a little lively for Cue Card. You want to win, but some things are impossible and trying to beat that racehorse today was one of the most impossible things I’ve ever tried to do. Thistlecrack was simply awesome.”

Brennan, who took his seasonal haul to 65 when steering The Worlds End to victory in the opener at Chepstow on Tuesday, could now link up with Cue Card in the Ryanair Chase – a race the horse won three years ago – at Cheltenham next March instead of a repeat crack at the Gold Cup.

Cue Card and Brennan were tanking along in the 2016 edition when coming to grief at the third last, but with trainer Tizzard also saddling the progressive Native River to land the Welsh Grand National this week, the yard now looks set to rely on their younger chasing contingent in the upcoming Gold Cup.