FESTIVAL NEWS FOCUS ON COLM MURPHY:LISTEN TO the conventional wisdom ahead of today's Seasons Holidays Queen Mother Champion Chase and Master Minded may as well have a walkover for all that his opposition are a danger to him winning the race for the second year running. Luckily for the Irish hopes of winning for the first time in three years, Colm Murphy doesn't do convention – in National Hunt racing at least.
As an accountancy graduate it’s not as if the trainer, based near Gorey in Co Wexford, is some Frank Zappa-like loon screeching at the sky.
Certainly in appearance there is a sobriety to the slight, bald figure that hints at the alternative career he turned away from to concentrate on training racehorses.
But Murphy is swimming against the tide when he believes Big Zeb has a chance to bustle up Master Minded this afternoon.
His reasoning is simple. He has a horse who is still improving and has the potential to improve a CV that already has a pair of Grade One victories on it.
But, most of all, he can’t forget the 12 fences that today’s field will have to jump at breakneck speed in order to win. Some have doubts about Big Zeb’s ability to cope with that. But Murphy knows there are risks for any supposed “good-thing” around here.
“I know on paper it’s definitely a one-horse race but anything can happen – Moscow Flyer tipping up at the top of the hill, Well Chief falling at the first – it’s jump racing,” he says.
“If our horse runs well, wherever he finishes, I’ll be happy, but I like to think we are going there with a serious chance.”
Bookmakers agree to an extent with Big Zeb rated second favourite but at a general price of 10-1. But Murphy rates his chances enough to have changed jockey arrangements with his new regular rider Matt O’Connor replaced by the top English rider, Robert “Chocolate” Thornton, a Champion Chase winner on Voy Por Ustedes in 2007.
“It’s purely for Choc’s experience around Cheltenham. Matt will get back on the horse but there is only one Champion Chase and Choc’s experience will be invaluable,” Murphy says. “He hasn’t sat on the horse before but that’s not a worry. He sits on a thousand horses a year and when I spoke to him first he nearly knew more about the horse than I did. These guys like Tony McCoy and Ruby Walsh are so professional now.”
Being a jump jockey however means it is always a case of when rather than if you get hurt. And the reality is that in the back of Thornton’s mind will be the tape of how Big Zeb tipped up on his last start at Punchestown behind Mansony. He might have looked to be going like a winner but these fences still have to be jumped.
“It was a stupid novicey mistake,” says Murphy. “He just got in too tight. It was always something that was going to happen but he just didn’t get away with it. I believe he has learned a fair bit from it and there have been no ill-effects from it at home,” he adds before dismissing any idea that his horse won’t have the raw pace for this two miles against top company.
“Two miles around Cheltenham is like two and a half anywhere else. But he also managed to win the Swordlestown last year on very quick ground at Punchestown.
“I liked the way he travelled and jumped at Leopardstown over Christmas and if he has improved even half as much as I think he has since then I think he will run a very big race,” Murphy adds.
Along with Scotsirish and the 2006 winner Newmill, Big Zeb flies the Irish flag in a race that in 1966 was won by the legendary Flyingbolt at odds of 1-5. The horse, rated within a pound of his stable companion Arkle, won as he liked before finishing third in the following day’s Champion Hurdle. He remains an almost mythical name in National Hunt racing.
The problem for Big Zeb today is he is up against a horse who might not be in the Flyingbolt class yet, but whose progress has been awesomely impressive. But the Murphy camp still know there is the prospect of those 12 fences.
