It's less than six months since Argocat sustained significant injuries in a fall but today's €200,000 Punchestown feature can put a Grade One seal on his rehabilitation and fill in a rare big-race blank for Tony McCoy in the process.
It's a lot easier to nominate what's missing from the nineteen-time British champion jockey's CV than reel off all the achievements – races such as the Newbury Hennessy and Cheltenham's World Hurdle – but today's Bibby Financial Punchestown Gold Cup is also one to escape McCoy's grasp.
Something of a coronation for Cheltenham Gold Cup heroes in the past, this time it is a hugely competitive contest with the horse in possession of perhaps the single best piece of current form, On His Own, overlooked by Ruby Walsh in favour of his stable mate Boston Bob.
The rights and wrongs of On His Own’s Cheltenham Gold Cup experience, and it was mostly very right indeed until the wrong in the stewards room where Lord Windermere was allowed hang on to the race, can’t disguise the hard race he had, something even Willie Mullins pointed out yesterday when conceding “it will be tough to replicate that run”.
Against that, there have been six weeks in the interim but Walsh's call is hardly an endorsement for On His Own's chance and in a race that has form when it comes to throwing up surprise results there could be value in looking elsewhere than the obvious ones.
Be logical
The combination of Walsh and Boston Bob will be logical as well as obvious to many after the horse bounced back to winning form over fences in the two-and-a-half-mile Melling at Aintree where Paul Townend appeared to unlock a key to a quality performer who had been reaching unwanted enigmatic status.
“Paul gave him a lovely cool ride and just waited for the horse to be ready himself to go, rather than pushing him,” Willie Mullins added yesterday. “That seemed to work better. He’s bred to stay and get this trip.”
The furlong drop in trip from Cheltenham could aid the comparatively-unheralded Lyreen Legend who ran a fine race in the Gold Cup when a second-last fence mistake looked to end his chance while Long Run, one of two cross-channel raiders, is a proven article around here although he does have to bounce back from a Grand National fall.
In comparison to Long Run, and the first-time blinkered First Lieutenant, Argocat comes into today's race under the radar but the fact he's coming in here at all is a tribute to Tom Taaffe and his team.
The local trainer knows what a solo show in this race is like having scored with the brilliant Kicking King in 2005 and he has never made any secret of his regard for Argocat, a flat-bred who won as a two-year-old at Newmarket, and carries the Fitri Hay colours more associated with Aidan O’Brien star performers such as Fame And Glory and Cape Blanco.
Argocat’s own prospects must have looked dicey at the start of November when a Down Royal fall left him with three broken ribs and internal injuries that left him needing a couple of months to start feeling better in himself.
Taaffe has brought him back gradually and Argocat rewarded him with a career-best at Aintree earlier this month when just behind Silviniaco Conti and Dynaste, with First Lieutenant behind him.
That confirmed the trip is not an issue and that winter injury could now wind up a blessing in disguise as there is an upward curve to Argocat’s profile that suggests even better may be to come at the end of a season which has seen some of today’s opposition on the go for some time.
