BROUGH SCOTT
SUNDAY TIMES SPORT
30th November 2024
You have to be fit. To gallop hard for more than six and a half minutes, jump 21 four and a half foot fences carrying eleven and a half stone of jockey and saddle tests fitness to its deepest depth. Kandoo Kid’s Coral Cup victory 232 days after his last competitive appearance stands out as one of the greatest pieces of equine conditioning in the big race’s 67 year history.
But when you see that the grey Kandoo Kid is trained by Paul Nicholls surprise should not be added to the acclamation. For in both 2007 and 2009 Nicholls did the same thing with the mighty Denman; the second time one year on from the horse being sidelined with a heart condition.
But don’t let’s pretend it is easy. When they cantered past us down to the start, the set of the jockeys’ faces and the bit-tugging eagerness of the horses told of the challenge ahead. The speedometer was already up to 30 mph as the favourite Broadway Boy led fellow Cotswold entry Henry’s Friend and with their dozen rivals in tight pursuit.
Well not quite all. Young Freddie Gingell, of the big smile and soaring victory in the Paddy Power Chase a fortnight ago, now found top weight Sam Brown the slowest burning of partners and few riders can ever have worked to finish as distant as 10th.
Up front Broadway Boy was joined by Colonel Harry with Kandoo Kid close in and the French raider General En Chef warming to his task after a couple of awkward jumps at the unfamiliar British obstacles.
Little changed until they reached the final straight bar Remastering shedding Jack Tudor at the 14th. But then Broadway Boy miraculously survived a bulldozing attempt at the 4th last. Colonel Harry led briefly before Harry Cobden swept past and thundered down towards us with General En Chef threatening and Broadway Boy trying to battle back.
In this vein Cobden is a joy to watch. With mind and body he sent his grey partner in and over. It was still a hard slog to the winning post but General En Chef’s stamina ebbed and Broadway Boy could not even reach his tail before the line.
40 minutes earlier all eyes had been on events on the big screen as the Fighting Fifth Hurdle was run at Newcastle. Despite an eight runner field it was billed as a match up against last year’s star Irish novice Mystical Power and the as yet unbeaten four year old Sir Gino who was standing in for his sidelined stablemate Constitution Hill.
Sir Gino duly powered home by eight long lengths from the Welsh runner Lump Sum but the race as a top class trial was rendered meaningless by the abject showing of Mystical Power who had left Lump Sum trailing at Aintree in April. Being by super sire Galileo out of champion hurdler Annie Power, the five year old must be the best bred horse ever to go jumping. His only defeat in six runs was a very honourable one at Cheltenham but for some reason he totally failed to fire yesterday.
“It presents the conundrum about where we go next,” said his trainer Nicky Henderson as we all know that he can’t take any decisions until the next few weeks tell him whether Constitution Hill will be fit enough to tackle the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton and then march on the Champion Hurdle in March.
Yes it all comes back to fitness. “This horse can be ready first time,” said Paul Nicholls standing next to the sweat soaked Kandoo Kid in the unsaddling enclosure, “so from the moment he came in this was the target. It is worth big money (£142k to the winner), so we made a plan and it was a proper performance by all the team.”
It was Paul Nicholls fourth victory in this race as a trainer but, uniquely, he also won it twice, in 1985 and 1986 as a jockey. By various drastic means he passed the scales on those occasions at ten and a half stone. The needle would show another five this morning. But as a trainer it is the mind that counts. Nicholls’s brain has never been fitter.