Robbie McNamara had to deny his giant frame for a sustained period to make the weight on Silver Concorde in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper yesterday evening but the sacrifices were quickly forgotten in the glow of a first festival success.
The stylish amateur jockey admits to being 6ft 3ins but hardly needs heels to make that. What McNamara needed in terms of discipline to make the 11st 5lb on Silver Concorde is something only he knows. But it paid off spectacularly as Dermot Weld’s second-string beat off the favourite Shaneshill in a thrilling finish to the day two finale.
As a brother of professional rider, Andrew McNamara, and a cousin of the stricken John Thomas McNamara, Silver Concorde’s partner was following in an honourable family tradition of Cheltenham success and the age-old jockey requirement of perseverance to maintain weight can rarely have been illustrated more vividly.
Last summer the battle against the scales was so hard McNamara seriously contemplated retirement. But it was the prospect of big-race opportunities like yesterday’s that kept him working at it.
Champion flat jockey Pat Smullen teamed up with Weld's other hope, the well backed Vigil, but McNamara, who's ridden both in the past, was happy to get with Silver Concorde in the divvy up.
"I felt if he stayed, he'd win. I really fancied him. He's not so much a bumper horse as a 10-furlong Listed horse on the flat. But he settled lovely and carried me into it great, took the gaps like a handicapper," the jockey said.
Second festival win
It was just a second festival win for Weld, 24 years after Rare Holiday in the Triumph Hurdle. "We've been second a few times since but we don't have many National Hunt horses anymore," he said. "I'd say Robbie's never done 11st 5lb in his life so the horse had to be special to get him to do that. We worked the two horses at home on soft ground and there wasn't much between them but I knew better ground would suit Silver Concorde. Robbie gave him a beautiful ride."
The last word went to McNamara, though, who when quizzed about his dietary regime to make 11st 5lb simply grinned: “I didn’t have a big lunch!”
Faugheen was backed as if defeat was out of the question in yesterday’s Neptune Novices’ Hurdle and the 6/4 favourite delivered in style, in the process revealing Willie Mullins’s own talent for understatement, as well as the champion trainer’s exalted standards.
Ruby Walsh carried the same Rich Ricci colours he wore on Tuesday's spectacular Supreme winner Vautour and there were echoes of that performance by Faugheen who blundered at the third last and yet progressed serenely on his way to maintain his unbeaten record.
'Smashing horse'
"A smashing horse," praised Walsh. "There was a lot under the bonnet."
Mullins, though, can clearly be harder to please and came out with the masterly understated: “He looks a fair sort. When he blundered at the third last I thought maybe that was it. But he picked up and went away. He looks a bit above average.”
Maybe Ireland’s most successful festival trainer was being mischievous but there was a significant comment when he was pressed into comparisons with Tuesday’s hero – “Vautour is a different level.”
As for the future he added: “Everyone seems to be trying to make hurdlers out of my chasers and although Faugheen will be staying over hurdles for the rest of the season, we bought him as a chaser. I think that with his temperament I’d prefer to send him chasing next season.”
Barry Geraghty has a record of retrieving lost festival causes but even his acclaimed Ryanair effort on Riverside Theatre didn't include him contemplating the idea of pulling up as was the case with O'Faolain's Boy who eventually got the better of a prolonged duel with Smad Place in the RSA.
"If you'd asked me where I was going to finish during the first half of the race, I'd have said I was going to pull up," said the Irishman on board his 30th festival winner.
'Ran in snatches'
"He ran in snatches, didn't jump as well, and I was never happy on him. I never thought I'd win but he came alive over the last mile. It wasn't his true form but he won and you'd have to say he's going to be better than this."
The unwanted title of unluckiest horse at Cheltenham must go to Get Me Out Of Here after he finished runner-up for the fourth time in the festival in the Coral Cup. Tony McCoy's mount was beaten a short head by Whisper and trainer Jonjo O'Neill admitted: "We thought everything was right for him today. He actually loves this place. It's just frustrating he's been beaten again."
A short-head was also the margin at the end of the marathon cross-country chase but it was the 2012 winner Baltahazar King that came out on the right side of it ahead of Any Currency.
