Inside Track: Punters left licking their wounds at Cheltenham

“You never see a bookie on a bike”, I wrote at the time when I was covering greyhound racing for this paper. There’d been a glut of outsiders at one particular meeting, no doubt leaving the layers richer than they’d been before setting up their pitches.

The late Shea Rooney, one of the bookmaking family from Ardee, saw the humour of it, and after that, whenever there was a blue moon, punters getting the better of the argument, he’d call out to me, “You haven’t got the loan of a pump, have you?”

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You can bet your house on it that there was no bookie leaving Cheltenham after last week’s festival looking for the bar of a bike home. More like sitting into a Bentley or a Roller – that’s if they hadn’t been driving one to the meeting.

It was carnage for punters. How could it be otherwise with a 66/1 shot, two 50/1s, a 33/1 and a whole lot other double-priced winners trotting up.

Yes, two of the meeting’s biggest prizes were won by a favourite and joint-favourite, but with many of the other 26 races over the four days going to winners well down in the betting, there’ll be fewer punters than bookies, on-course and in offices, carrying fond memories of this Prestbury Park get-together.

But didn’t Willie Mullins finish top trainer and Paul Townend leading jockey, those with only a minor interest in the game might ask. They win everything, don’t they?

This lethal duo excelled, alright, winning the Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle; but it happened often in other races that the world’s greatest National Hunt trainer had multiple entries, and didn’t win with the best-fancied of them.

For instance, he had nine in the opening contest on the last day and won it with a 50/1 chance. Two of his other winners each went off at 11/1.

But all of that aside, Mullins dominated the meeting as he has done so often in the past. His clutch of winners further strengthened his position as the meeting’s winningmost trainer.

There’s a statue of Dawn Run, the only horse to have won the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup in the enclosure – maybe it’s time to have one erected to the Master of Closutton. Dawn Run, by the way, was trained by the founder of the Mullins’ dynasty, Paddy, Willie’s father.

The rivalry between Ireland and England, most times friendly – at least on the surface – took a nasty turn when jockeys Declan Queally and Nico de Boinville got into a tangle at the start of a hurdle race.

Both went for the same position as they lined up for the start, and this led to a barging match and some heated words.

There were more verbals after the race, Waterford’s Queally claiming he’d been racially abused by de Boinville, who made no effort to hide his anger with Queally when interviewed. The matter was reported to the Stewards.

Peace seemed to have broken out, when, on the following day, both posed for the cameras, shaking hands. But if ever there was a frosty handshake, this was it. There were no smiles, no hugs, or good luck at the rest of the meeting.

That wasn’t the only problem down where the horses took off. There were several false starts over the first three days, something you might expect at a school sports, not at what’s sold as the Olympics of National Hunt racing.

Could you imagine Usain Bolt and his 100 metre rivals being called back by the Starter three or four times?