The rat-a-tat sequence of three Grade One races at Kempton on St Stephen’s Day has rarely, if ever, seen a combination of high quality and higher drama to match the action that unfolded over the course of little more than an hour on Tuesday, and the King George VI Chase won by Hewick was, appropriately, the most gripping of all.
From the first stride, when the quirky Shishkin jumped away with the field, to the final, booming echoes of trainer Shark Hanlon’s celebrations in the winner’s enclosure, this was a race, and an experience, that few in the crowd of just under 12,000 are ever likely to forget.
The first gasps rose from the stand early on the first circuit as Frodon and Bryony Frost, the winners three years ago, flew several fences down the back from just inside the wings. Shishkin and Nico de Boinville then joined them for much of the next mile-and-a-half, matching strides and jumps until Frodon started to tire with around a mile to run.
Shishkin was still in front as they turned for home with three to jump and the hum from the stands started to turn into a roar. Allaho, the favourite from the Willie Mullins yard, and Bravemansgame, were in close pursuit and the “big three” in the betting seemed to be going clear and preparing to slug it out to the line. Hewick, meanwhile, was last of the six runners, off the bit and apparently going nowhere fast, so much so that having set off at 12-1, he was matched at 549-1 in-running on Betfair.
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The next twist came at the second-last, where Shishkin jumped well, only to stumble two strides later and unseat his rider, hampering Bravemansgame as he did so. The race, it seemed, was now Allaho’s to lose. But the green colours of Hewick and Gavin Sheehan, who had a least half a dozen lengths to find at the second-last, were suddenly bearing down on the leaders.
Hewick was still at least two lengths down at the last, with only the short run-in to come, but he was finishing so well – or, perhaps, the horses in front were stopping so rapidly – that he swept past with half-a-dozen strides to spare. Sheehan even had time to pull out what he described as a “Mikael Barzalona” celebration, recalling the French rider’s up-in-the-saddle delight on Pour Moi in the Derby in 2011.
That was just a hint of what was to come in the winner’s enclosure, as the unmistakable figure of Hanlon prepared to welcome back a horse that he originally bought for €850, having seen off better-fancied contenders from some of the biggest stables in the game.
Some of the language was as colourful as the trainer, but Hanlon’s general mood could be summed up by his shout to the crowd that “we’re not here for a long time so we’re going to have a f***ing good time.” He insists, too, that while the Grand National at Aintree is probably the ideal target for Hewick, there is no way he is going to swerve the Cheltenham Gold Cup having won a King George.
“Turning out of the back, I said we will still be in the first three,” Hanlon said. “He is a small horse but he has such a heart.
“When you are here [after the King George] you have to go for a Gold Cup and Cheltenham will suit this horse a lot better as it is a tougher three-and-a-quarter miles. There were a lot of the other horses that had problems, and we came here fresh and had a great man on board, and that was it.
“I never thought he should be 12-1 today. It doesn’t usually happen like this when you buy an £800 horse [but] he is as tough a horse as you will find in England or Ireland.”
Sheehan admitted that in any other race, he would have been tempted to pull up on Hewick with as much as a circuit to run, but he realised leaving the back that his horse still had a lot more to give.
“I jumped two and thought, this isn’t happening,” the jockey said, “and the further I went, the more I thought it isn’t happening.
“I never felt comfortable, never got any fluency, or thought that I was going to. But he was still holding his pitch, and when I gave him two reminders, I started to feel a gear change and a new horse underneath me.
“When Nico went down, I thought I was going to be third, happy days. And down to the last, I thought the boys [in front] are gone, it was a brilliant feeling.
“Words can’t describe it, because you’re not going and all of a sudden you’re pitching in against classy horses like that, going to the last like a fresh horse. To do that was just massive.” – Guardian
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