Four days of sport. Four days of highs. Four days of lows. Four days of everything in between.
Gaelic Warrior finishing it off with a dominant win in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Townend and Mullins again. Breaking all records, passing their heroes – Dreaper, Taaffe – yeah, those kinds of heroes. A realm they could not have dreamt about when chasing their dreams. Inspiration for the rest of us. It seems a long way off, admittedly.
Melting my way through Heathrow, the bounce in the step from Friday morning – Sherminator at Exeter, Sandown, Cheltenham – a distant memory. That’s how it goes on road trips to promised lands.
Tough old game. As I watched Gaelic Warrior power up the hill, I scanned back to be sure Envoi Allen touched down over the last fence. He did. I exhaled. In his eighth Cheltenham Festival, I hustled to the paddock, sure to see Gaelic Warrior walk in but also to see Envoi Allen, an old friend who I had never met. I thought I’d give him a few claps as he walked away from a place which he had made magic. Waiting. Then I heard someone say, “on the walk back” and I saw Henry de Bromhead, start walking back down the horse path. A man who has seen the worst getting another does of pain. We waited, hoping against hope. The realization came quickly as tears began to flow from men and women with red and white and blue cap silks on their badges.
A groom carrying a leather bridle and a dry sweat sheet, that’s it. The cruelest of blows. The cruelest of ends.
