Northern Raiders: Jefferson jumping to different tune

Snowed in by the ‘Beast of the East’ earlier this week, and with racing around the country abandoned, there seemed no better way to occupy my time than by watching old Cheltenham re-runs and whetting the appetite for what is to come in less than two weeks’ time.

Unfortunately, revisiting last year’s Gold Cup – in addition to ‘that’ RSA Chase won by Might Bite – failed to reveal the identity of the 2018 winner as I had hoped, and instead it was a comment from some years earlier that stuck with me during this Festival binge, specifically one from an interview before the 2013 renewal of the blue riband.

A proper old-fashioned soft-ground renewal won by the loveable Bobs Worth, Alice Plunkett had asked trainer Malcolm Jefferson whether his runner – the eventual fifth Cape Tribulation – was ground dependent or not. Jefferson, who very sadly passed away after a long illness last month, simply smiled and recalled a quote from a former training colleague in the north.

“As Arthur Stephenson used to say, ‘it’s not the going, it’s the coming back that matters’,” the Norton handler replied.

Jefferson and Stephenson had around 70 years of training experience between them, with the latter’s biggest triumph coming courtesy of The Thinker in the 1987 Gold Cup, the start of which was delayed after heavy snowfall in the hour beforehand (surely the beast will have relented come 3.30pm on Friday 16^th March 2018?). It is also a common saying that good horses go on any ground, but, whatever the aforementioned quote might suggest, both Jefferson and Stephenson knew that not to be the case, with no finer example at present than a horse once trained by Malcolm.

The top-class Waiting Patiently seemingly has the coming back down to a tee, unbeaten in six starts over fences, but the going clearly matters plenty to him, too. So much so that Malcolm’s daughter Ruth is not prepared to risk him unless there is sufficient cut in the ground, with the reasons for this said to be two-fold. The first is a chip in his joint that had to be removed and curtailed his novice season over fences, but also key is information passed on from previous trainer Keith Reveley.

“He finished second to our Cloudy Dream on good ground at Doncaster, when he was trained by Keith, and came back very sore all over,” Ruth explains. “If you watch his action, he does have a knee action that would suggest he wants cut in the ground and also, when you see him, he’s a small horse but very wide and quite heavy. A bit like anything else, the quicker the ground the more wear and tear on your joints, and, if he doesn’t like it any way, he won’t let himself down and you risk jarring him up.”

Waiting Patiently (@Timeform rated 171p) surveying a snowy scene at @NRuthJefferson Newstead Cottage Stables pic.twitter.com/o1yaYMgVBZ

— Adam Houghton (@hought94) March 1, 2018

The ground, therefore, will be crucial to determining whether Waiting Patiently lines up in the Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham, a race for which he is currently the second favourite behind Un de Sceaux, following an impressive victory in the Grade 1 Ascot Chase last time – just Ruth’s second winner since taking over the reins at Newstead Cottage Stable two weeks earlier.

“I thought for a moment Cue Card had got first run on us here,” Ruth recalls of that emotional day at Ascot. “You began to wonder, because Cue Card’s a bit of a legend isn’t he? But as soon as Brian [Hughes] said go and he picked up, I thought barring incident we’ve won this.

“I think when he hit the last he lost his concentration a little bit, because he lost his momentum and wandered around. Brian had to gather him up and he hit him, and he doesn’t really like that. You can see him flash his tail and start to think about what you’re doing rather than what he’s supposed to be doing.

“But it was good, it was nice for the owner Richard Collins, nice for the lads and nice for everyone else. It’s not often you get a horse this good is it? So we’ll just enjoy him while he’s here.”

WOW! Waiting Patiently wins the big one in the Betfair Ascot Chase.

LIVE racing on @ITV4. pic.twitter.com/wElcFmewBb

— ITV Racing (@itvracing) February 17, 2018

Whether there will be more enjoyment to be had at Cheltenham remains a debate for another day. The latest reports suggest the going could be soft come the opening day, but that is not to say conditions will still be the same two days later, and, in any case, Jefferson is not totally convinced that Waiting Patiently has the necessary experience for the test that the Ryanair provides.

“I just thought at Ascot, which was his stiffest jumping test to date, it just caught him out slightly. He was in a couple of handicaps at Cheltenham earlier on in the year, and then he had his head cold and didn’t go. It would have given us the opportunity to see how he handled the track before he went into a Grade 1 race.

“The way the Festival races are run, it is jump and go and Un de Sceaux and Cue Card will make it a gallop. Whether he’s got the experience for that yet, I just don’t know. He’s only seven and he’s not running in a novice, he’d be running in a proper race.

“Like we’ve said, I know the whole world’s obsessed (with Cheltenham), but it’s not the be-all and end-all to us. It wouldn’t be the end of our world if we missed it, there’s plenty of races the rest of the year that come up on soft ground that count to us just as much.”

Nevertheless, Ruth has fond memories of accompanying her father’s horses to the Festival, none more so than the double completed by Cape Tribulation and Attaglance in 2012. She is at pains to point out that she is far from anti-Cheltenham, with victory at the meeting for Cloudy Dream, a potential Ryanair rival for Waiting Patiently and a horse Ruth seemingly has a big soft spot for, one that would bring her perhaps more satisfaction than any other.

“I suppose really it probably wasn’t the most clarified quote in the world. I think, for Waiting Patiently, Cheltenham isn’t the be-all and end-all, because we’ve never seen him as a Cheltenham horse. But if Cloudy Dream won at Cheltenham I’d be thrilled, because I think he’s just one of the most ultra-consistent horses in racing. Waiting Patiently has run six times in two seasons and Cloudy Dream ran seven times over fences just last year.

“He deserves another chance when conditions suit. He loves good ground, he loves Cheltenham and I would have said two and a half miles and a strong gallop would be his optimum. He’s a good jumper, too, it’s very rare that you see Cloudy make a mistake. It would mean a lot if he did it, because he’s often been overlooked and he’s actually quite a good horse.”

Ryanair-bound Cloudy Dream (@Timeform rated 157) also pictured at the yard of @NRuthJefferson this afternoon pic.twitter.com/ArhqOUJ8fx

— Adam Houghton (@hought94) March 1, 2018

Mount Mews, who holds no less than four entries at the Festival, completes Jefferson’s potential team heading there. He is said to be more likely to run over fences than hurdles, though Trevor Hemmings has several cards to play in the novice events at the meeting and much will depend on how he chooses them to fall.

Whichever race Mount Mews heads to the start line for, a great man once said it is the coming back that matters most. As Jamie Lynch wrote in his recent column, however, the going has the potential to dictate who does the coming back the fastest. Millions will be tuning in to find it out but, for now, we have nothing better to do than watch replays and wait patiently for it all to unfold.