2013 Champion Chase

[mayo]

Donn

Champion Chase, easy peasy, Sprinter Sacre, but sit back and watch him. Enjoy him. You don’t want to be ruining the race for yourself by having four bars to win one.

Hopefully sense will prevail at some stage and Mr and Mrs Potts will run Sizing Europe in the Ryanair Chase – a race he can win – and not here against Nicky Henderson’s monster, but I am looking forward to seeing Mail De Bievre dance along out in front over two miles. The easy ground will suit, and if he jumps as well on Cheltenham’s undulations as he did at Newbury last time, he might just last a little longer than most people think.

[Sizing]

Much as i love SE disappointed that he is going back to Champion Chase. There was a history making opportunity to win 3 different chases at the festival. Don't think he can beat Sprinter Sacre if he couldnt beat FR last year. Needs a bit longer now.

[Lester]

so excited about this one..

[Lester]

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[Old Vic]

Barry G

I know I’ve said this before but I’m going to say it again because it’s the truth; SPRINTER SACRE is the apple of my eye and I just can’t wait to get on him in the Queen Mother Champion Chase (3.20).

But how lucky am I ?

I’ve already had Moscow Flyer, who was exceptional, and Simonsig's pretty good too, but this horse is something really special.

In all my time riding, I’ve never known a horse jump a fence so easily or travel so smoothly through a race.

He’s so natural, he could be something else. I was delighted with him when I schooled him recently as he felt great

I won’t be going in with any great strategy except to get him nice and relaxed and find a nice rhythm. In fairness, he’s much more relaxed now than earlier in his career.

He’s got plenty of pace so there’s no point in getting involved too early and I don’t feel any pressure riding him because I have complete faith in his ability.

I hope you enjoy the show and we get the right outcome.

[Old Vic]

Jessica Harrington

The Champion Chase doesn’t need any analysis. Sizing Europe has been a great servant for Henry and looks in tremendous form but he should be a clear second. Sprinter Sacre is an unbelievable horse, a brilliant jumper and so quick. As usual, I’m staying with Nicky and he is delighted with Sprinter Sacre. That’s a formality for me.

[mayo]

Cheltenham Festival 2013: Barry Geraghty says Sprinter Sacre is the closest thing to equine perfection - Telegraph

So, when Geraghty declared Sprinter Sacre the closest thing to equine perfection after Wednesday’s Sportingbet Queen Mother Champion Chase rout, he was speaking with a special brand of authority.

Form experts Timeform agreed and gave the strapping chaser a provisional mark higher than Kauto Star, which also placed him behind only the immortal Arkle and Flyingbolt on the all-time list. It was mind-boggling stuff.

Like all talented jockeys when they get the chance to ride truly outstanding horses regularly, Geraghty has acquired an air of natural confidence around the good ones. He has the poise and experience to cope with any situation and yesterday there was only one moment of suspense to worry him during the two-mile trip.

Four fences out, the rider wanted Sprinter Sacre to go long with his jumping, but instead the great chaser disagreed and unexpectedly put in an extra step, which might have surprised a less-talented partner. “I gave him a squeeze and I don’t think he has ever put down on me before,” Geraghty said.

“It didn’t matter though, because he winged the next. He is a beautiful horse to ride and I have never ridden something so natural. Once he is healthy and well, get him into a nice rhythm and he does the rest. He is a pleasure to ride and must be the closest thing to equine perfection.”

Unfazed by the incident, Geraghty sat tight and as Sprinter Sacre gathered momentum down the final hill, he soon put Sizing Europe to the sword and galloped away majestically to beat the 2011 Champion Chase winner by 19 lengths. There was six lengths back to third Wishfull Thinking, with three lengths to Sanctuaire in fourth.

Geraghty regularly rode Moscow Flyer, winner of the Queen Mother Chase in 2003 and 2005, and at his best the Jessica Harrington-trained star was near to unbeatable. He was the jockey’s first Festival winner so will always be special, but Sprinter Sacre has another dimension to him.

“I have ridden some brilliant horses over the years, but the ease and grace with which Sprinter Sacre does it, sets him apart,” said Geraghty.

Sizing Europe slipped on the flat running down to the home bend but it made no difference to his finishing position. He came home a gallant second and in the process provided handicappers with a valuable link to earlier generations of two-milers.

John De Moraville, the BHA handicapper, said Sprinter Sacre had put up the best two-mile chase performance in the history of the Anglo-Irish Jump Classifications. He had earned a mark of 188 with this impressive display.

“This is 2lb higher than the 186 recorded by Master Minded with his stunning victory in the same race five years ago. Unbeaten now in his eight chases, and yet to be fully extended, who is to say the seven-year-old won’t go on to better the highest-rated horse in the history of the Classifications, Kauto Star and his rating of 190?”

The Sprinter Sacre story and how he came to arrive at Nicky Henderson’s Seven Barrows yard from a job lot bought from France, is well documented. However, the more the horse runs and wins the more the trainer has found new tributes.

“He has such an easy way of doing it and today he was fantastic,” Henderson said. “He loves racing and does it so easily.

“We’re very lucky to have him. Sometimes the crowd gets something special to watch and I hope today they have enjoyed watching him, although I don’t know that I did.

“He has an aura about him and he knows he’s good. He doesn’t hide it under a bushel. He doesn’t do anything by halves. It’s the way he lives. Barry enjoys it, the horse enjoys it, and I hate it. But it’s fun afterwards.”

Henderson, who said Sprinter Sacre would now go to Punchestown for his fourth outing of the season, freely subscribed to the theory that Sprinter Sacre was the best he had trained. “It’s all about his build, balance and brain because he can work it all out,” he said proudly.

Hype in racing is dangerous, particularly when those in charge of promoting the sport are so desperate to find a peg on which to hang things. Frankel was real on the Flat, Kauto Star and Denman were real over jumps, and now there is Sprinter Sacre for us all to enjoy. You might be excused for thinking this game is blessed.

[mayo]

Sprinter Sacre is Pelé of Cheltenham Festival, says Barry Geraghty | Sport | The Guardian

Barry Geraghty likened Sprinter Sacre to Pelé after guiding him to a crushing 19-length victory in the Queen Mother Champion Chase on the second day of the Cheltenham Festival.

The horse, the shortest-priced favourite at this year's Festival, established himself as one of the finest steeplechasers of recent decades when winning the day's feature event. Making what was only his eighth start over fences, Sprinter Sacre outclassed his six opponents, including Sizing Europe, the winner of the Champion Chase two years ago. Nicky Henderson's seven-year-old remains unbeaten in chases, in which he has an aggregate winning margin of 114 lengths.

"He has such power and scope and that gives him the time he needs," Geraghty, his jockey, said. "He's like a top footballer, like Pelé on the ball, who used to do it all easily because his speed and power and skill gave him the time to do it."

Henderson shed tears of relief once Sprinter Sacre, who started at 1-4, was safely past the final fence with victory assured. "We're very lucky to have him," Henderson said. "Sometimes the crowd gets something special to watch and I hope today they have enjoyed watching him, although I don't know if I did.

"He has an aura about him and he knows he's good. He doesn't hide it under a bushel or do anything by halves; it's the way he lives. Barry enjoys it, the horse enjoys it and I hate it. But it's fun afterwards."

Sprinter Sacre's performance prompted the British Horseracing Authority's official handicapper to raise his rating to 188, 2lb behind the highest rating achieved by Kauto Star, the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 2007 and 2009.

Given his youth and relative inexperience, there is every chance that Sprinter Sacre will exceed Kauto Star's mark of 190 in the seasons ahead.

Bookmakers already rate Sprinter Sacre as a near certainty to win next year's Champion Chase, with William Hill quoting him at 2-5, while the same firm offer him at even money to win the Champion Chase in both 2014 and 2015.

Sprinter Sacre may now attempt to extend his unbeaten record over jumps to nine races at the Punchestown Festival in Ireland next month.

"He's had only three races this season," Henderson said. "There's a nice Grade One in Ireland and then he would have the summer off and come back and defend his title."

[mayo]

It’s an old racing adage that they all look fast running past trees: Sprinter Sacre ran past a champion in Sizing Europe at Cheltenham yesterday and left him looking more than a little wooden.

That’s no insult to Henry De Bromhead ’s festival stalwart. Sprinter Sacre did after all start at 1/4, the shortest priced favourite for the Queen Mother Champion Chase since Flyingbolt 47 years ago. And in winning he treated the opposition with such swaggering disdain that Arkle’s notoriously bad-tempered old next-door-neighbour might even have approved.

Nods to those two semi-mythical steeplechase names reflect the territory Sprinter Sacre is now starting to inhabit.

Flyingbolt was ridden to success in 1966 by Pat Taaffe and Barry Geraghty joined that legendary figure at the top of the Champion Chase tree yesterday with a fifth success in the two-mile crown.

Reaching for superlatives
Moscow Flyer provided Geraghty with two of those victories and like most of us, the Meath man reckoned he would never ride a better chaser over the minimum trip. But Sprinter Sacre has him reaching for superlatives so often he admitted yesterday to considering the purchase of a new dictionary.

The Sizing Europe team might be able to help him out.

Yesterday was Sizing Europe’s fifth festival start. The 2011 Champion Chase and the 2010 Arkle have been the highlights. Finishing an unlucky runner-up to Finian’s Rainbow last year was an exercise in severe frustration. Finishing hurt in the 2008 Champion Hurdle was even more stressful. But he has always been a serious player, until yesterday.

By the time he became the latest runner to trip on a wood-chip crossing before the turn in, Sizing Europe was already a busted flush. And that despite travelling and jumping with all the élan of old. Back then though he didn’t have the “dark aeroplane” that is Sprinter Sacre stalking his every move. “We had a go but we were beaten by a phenomenal horse. Andrew (Lynch) said the horse tripped but it made no difference to the result. By then, the race was over,” Henry De Bromhead admitted.

Another shot
The decision to skip today’s Ryanair in favour of another shot at two-mile glory didn’t come off but De Bromhead was reluctant to travel down the speculative road of what challenge Sizing Europe might have presented to Sprinter Sacre a few years previously. “We are an 11-year-old but to be honest he has seemed as good as ever and he’s put us in our place,” he said. “Our fella did everything right but we were beaten by a very, very special horse.”

Even Nicky Henderson, who’s trained more festival winners than anyone else, admits to being under the spell of his latest superstar performer who could yet face his novice stable-companion Simonsig in a mouth-watering Queen Mother clash in 2014.

The bookmakers are in no doubt about who’s the superior though and Sprinter Sacre is already odds-on.

“Not only is he very good but he’s also the most stunning horse in the world, and that’s not always the case,” Henderson said, when asked about the growing swell of popular support for the new-boy on the two-mile block. “It’s all ‘look at me, look at me’.”

Henderson’s reference to last year’s winner, Finian’s Rainbow, a champion himself after all, but now reduced to a supporting role behind his stable companion, testifies to the strength Henderson has in this division.

“That’s the only sad bit. You’d like the reigning champ defending his crown but things haven’t gone Finian’s’ way,” he said. “Last year it was all about what might happen if Finian’s met Sprinter Sacre. Now it will be all about Simonsig but I do think they are both genuine two-milers. Barry might have the biggest problem.”

Even theoretically that choice represents an embarrassment of choice for any jockey. “He must be the closest thing to equine perfection around at the moment. I have ridden some brilliant horses over the years but the ease and grace this horse does it with sets him apart,” the jockey said.

The mouth-watering prospect from an Irish perspective is that Henderson is considering giving Sprinter Sacre a final start of this campaign at Punchestown next month.

“There is a nice Grade One at Punchestown,” grinned the trainer, maybe milking the moment a little bit, knowing the impact of an appearance by this superstar in horse-mad Co Kildare.

[mayo]

Cheltenham Festival: Sizing Europe no match for sizzling Sprinter Sacre

The idea had been to establish just how good this impossibly glamorous creature might be. Ludicrously, after seeing Sprinter Sacre dismiss his toughest opponent yet with all his usual élan, we still don’t know – and it is becoming difficult to imagine just how anyone is supposed to find out. At this rate, they are going to have to devise a different set of rules for the winner of the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Strap a barrel to his rider, perhaps, or give the others a 30-second start. As things stand, his performance here suggests that the mantle of Frankel, as an idol of the modern Turf, has been passed to a steeplechaser.

Certainly Sprinter Sacre has the flair to transcend the boundaries of what can seem an arcane sport. Appreciation of his animal swagger does not require even the most rudimentary expertise. His sheer pulchritude is matched by such effervescence and animation that his leap over the last fence seemed to span the entire Festival. It no longer seemed to matter whether or not the Gold Cup might yield a vintage spectacle. Nothing could now displace Sprinter Sacre as the defining performer of the week – and of a sport that had reckoned itself bereft when Kauto Star retired last year. The odds were so short that no venality, for once, infected the acclaim of the stands. Everyone was simply exulting in their privilege.

After seven wins in seven starts over fences, they had seen the bar raised for Sprinter Sacre. Though now 11 years old, Sizing Europe set a benchmark of undiminished class and enthusiasm. Twice a winner over this course, and a noble second last year, the Irish horse jumped and travelled superbly as Mail De Bievre blazed a trail, and was prompted to throw down the gauntlet as the leader blundered at the last ditch. And it was here that Sprinter Sacre intimated his mortality for the first and only time. “It wasn’t really a mistake,” Barry Geraghty said afterwards. “He knew what he was doing. He was long into it, really long, and he put down on me. But off that dead ground he was telling me that was the thing to do.”

Geraghty then let his mount glide alongside Sizing Europe, and the pair of them instantly opened up by a dozen lengths or more on the rest. Now came the moment of truth.

It was settled with brutal efficiency, as the flourish of a scimitar. Suddenly Sizing Europe was off the bridle, and Sprinter Sacre hurtling clear with Geraghty motionless. Any vestige of resistance was extinguished as the veteran stumbled on a path across the track, but he regrouped gallantly to confine the margin between them to 19 lengths, with Wishfull Thinking claiming footnote status in third.

The responsibility of supervising this breathtaking talent is not lost on Nicky Henderson, now trainer of 49 Festival winners. “I hope the public did enjoy watching him because I’m not sure I did!” he said. “You sort of enjoy it, but they still have to do it. There are fences to jump, and you have to be careful because he does find it so ridiculously easy. He loves to attack and you do worry complacency might creep into it.”

Henderson accepts that he has never trained a chaser like this. “He has an aura about him,” he said. “He knows he’s good. He doesn’t hide it under a bushel, doesn’t do anything by halves. It’s the way he lives. Barry enjoys it, the horse enjoys it, and I hate it. But it’s fun afterwards. He’s nearly the perfect racehorse. We were well aware that anything bar stunning wouldn’t keep people happy. But that was stunning.”

Sprinter Sacre may now proceed to Punchestown next month but it may not be easy to find anyone prepared to take him on. That was once Moscow Flyer’s stamping ground, and Geraghty always shows decorous respect for his experiences on that horse. But he is finding it increasingly hard to resist the consensus that few jockeys of his generation have ever had such a conveyance.

“I have ridden some brilliant horses over the years,” he said. “But the ease and grace he does it with sets him apart. He has such power and scope, and that gives him all the time he needs. He’s like Pele on the ball, doing it all so easily because his speed and power and skill gave him time. I have never ridden anything so natural.”

Henry De Bromhead saluted Sizing Europe as his own “horse of a lifetime”, and should be proud of his own role, but was under no illusions as he surveyed the majestic winner in the unsaddling enclosure. “We had a go and served it up to him,” the Co Waterford trainer said. “But we’ve come out second best. He’s a phenomenon.”