Champion jockey Paul Townend produced a ride for the ages to win Easter Monday’s Boylesports Irish Grand National on the JP McManus owned I Am Maximus at Fairyhouse.
Lauded for his ice-cool spin in last month’s Cheltenham Gold Cup on Galopin Des Champs, Townend perhaps produced an even more impressive effort to win Ireland’s richest jumps race for the first time.
I Am Maximus looked far from co-operative for much of the €500,000 marathon, getting a reminder after the second fence, and appearing to resent the ploy of racing on the inner to counter his habit of jumping left.
Townend persevered and somehow smuggled the 8-1 shot, who was having his first race in McManus’s colours, into contention on the turn in. The partnership then waited to pounce on Gevrey after the last and ultimately get home in front by a length.
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On soft going just six finished as all 27 runners returned unscathed in front of an official attendance of 16,165, up 1,100 on 2022.
On course to be crowned champion jockey for a sixth time, and just four shy of a century of winners this season, the man who succeeded Ruby Walsh in the coveted position of Willie Mullins’s No. 1 rider was praised to the hilt by his predecessor.
“What a brilliant, brilliant piece of racing riding,” Walsh said in his punditry role on RTE. “You couldn’t time it any better than that man did.”
Willie Mullins, winning the Irish National for a second time, wasn’t present but his assistant, David Casey concurred – “I don’t have the words. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
“We know how good a rider Paul is anyway, I didn’t think he could better Galopin Des Champs from Cheltenham, but I thought that was amazing.
“He just wasn’t travelling, he didn’t seem to be enjoying it down the inside in the crowd. Paul kept persevering, kept galvanising and kept saving and kept him jumping.”
Despite holding the best job in racing, Townend’s low-key approach has seen him struggle to escape Walsh’s still high-profile shadow. He also received some pointed flak from Mullins for a couple of rides during February’s Dublin Racing Festival.
But at 32, the Cork man has definitively cemented his position as champion, both under the most intense pressure in last month’s Gold Cup, and now pulling such an unlikely big-race victory out of the fire.
Asked about finally landing the Irish National, Townend said: “It was looking unlikely for a long way. I just tried to get him back popping.
“He was too slow jumping down the inside. I wanted to keep horses outside of me but it cut me out of the race, so I had to let him go left and bank on one (big jump) at the last.
“You never write off one of Willie’s, but it was certainly a lot harder work than it normally is riding for him!”
He added: “This is a very special. It’s huge to win this. You need so much luck. I finished second here a few years back (Away We Go in 2013) and my record besides that wasn’t great.
“I thought Gaillard Du Mesnil was my best chance in it last year and he ran well to finish third. I’m very fortunate that this lad popped up and that it worked out in the end.”
McManus’s No. 1 jockey Mark Walsh partnered Thedevilscoachman who was pulled up as the owner got an immediate return on his purchase of the winner after Cheltenham.
It secured McManus a fourth Irish National, 40 years after the first with Bit Of A Skite, and while witnessing plenty fine rides in that timespan he was ultra-complimentary of Townend’s effort – “We’ll talk about the ride in the Gold Cup but I don’t think anything surpasses that.”
Having failed to win it for many years, Mullins finally won the Irish National in 2019 with Burrows Saint and after Easter Sunday’s 113,999/1 eight-timer I Am Maximus put a seal on a vintage Easter period.
The big-race winner topped an earlier Grade 2 double for the Mullins-Townend team which combined with a Cork winner paid odds of 127/1.
If Townend made his own luck in the feature, he had the fates on his side in the McInerney Chase as Mark Walsh in the McManus colours fell at the last on Janidil with the race at his mercy. It left a tired Easy Game to pick up the pieces and win the race for a third year in a row.
The jockey picked correctly when half a length separated the stable companions Asterion Forlonge and Monkfish at the end of the Rathbarry & Glenview Studs Hurdle. The Willie Mullins pair are set to clash again at Punchestown later this month in the Grade 1 Ladbrokes Stayers Hurdle.
Asterion Forlonge justified 11-8 favouritism but there was plenty of encouragement in Monkfish’s performance on his return from two years on the sidelines.
“Monkfish had plenty of build-up work done but he’ll improve again for it,” David Casey, said. “The idea is to keep him over hurdles for the end of the season and then maybe go back chasing next year.”
Townend’s National focus now switches to Aintree’s spectacular on Saturday where he will try to break his duck in the most famous steeplechase of all.
A familial rubber-stamp on this exceptional Easter Monday though came 260kms away in Cork where Townend’s father Tim saddled the final winner, Straight Home, ridden by the big-race hero’s sister, Jody.
