Flooring Porter syndicate on cloud nine after big-race win

AS if there wasn’t enough tension in the air on the morning of last Thursday’s Stayers Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, Kerril Creaven’s heart skipped a few beats when he saw who was calling him at around 8.30am.

It was Edward Hogarty’s number which flashed up, a fellow member of the four-man Flooring Porter Syndicate. Kerril’s alarm bells went off and his immediate reaction was: “There’s something wrong here.”

He was fearing the worst for their big-race Cheltenham contender – the hugely progressive Flooring Porter. Moments into the call, his anxiety was allayed but there was still a problem.

Instead of the horse, it was the jockey who proved an eleventh-hour casualty. Jonathan Moore had taken a heavy fall in a beginners’ chase at Naas the previous Sunday, but hoped all along to continue his successful association with Flooring Porter.

Riding out on the morning of the race, however, Moore was stiff suffering pain when he stood up in the irons. He knew he couldn’t do the horse justice, especially when the stakes were so high, and proceeded to make the most gut-wrenching but bravest decision of his racing life.

Moore told trainer Gavin Cromwell he wasn’t fit to ride but suggested that Danny Mullins would make an ideal replacement for Flooring Porter, a horse whose fortunes have been transformed since connections adopted pace-setting tactics in a handicap hurdle at Navan last December.

That was the early morning drama around a horse whose rapid rise through the staying hurdling ranks ensured that he wasn’t ignored in the betting market, being sent off a 12/1 chance for the £240,000 contest.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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