Vautour: The Timeform View

`What this horse did today was grand but I didn’t think it was in anything like the same league as what Vautour did.’ As pointed out elsewhere, trainer Willie Mullins is adamant that Faugheen is not so good as stablemate Vautour, a belief shared by Rich Ricci whose wife Susannah owns both horses. It was certainly hard not to be most impressed by Vautour’s superb exhibition in the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, a race in which only one winner in the past fifteen years_the same connections’ Champagne Fever in 2013_has achieved a higher Annual rating than Vautour, whose 158p places him alongside Al Ferof (who didn’t have a `p’) and ahead of the likes of Menorah, Go Native and Brave Inca at the same stage. Vautour may very well be better than Faugheen, but from what has been seen of them on the track Vautour certainly cannot be said to be in a different league. Faugheen actually ended the season as Timeform’s highest-rated novice hurdler, though the more pertinent point is that both Faugheen and Vautour are very exciting prospects. Vautour in particular looks every inch a chaser and appears the more likely type to be campaigned over fences in the next season_at the time of writing he is the clear favourite for the Arkle at 5/1 (ahead of Faugheen)_though Mullins suggested in late-April that either Vautour or Faugheen would almost certainly remain over timber in 2014/15 with the Champion Hurdle as the target.

Vautour was purchased privately from his breeders after he had finished runner-up over hurdles on both his starts for Guillaume Macaire, firstly in a newcomers race at Pau in December 2012 and then, three months later, in a four-year-old event at Auteuil (beaten by Black River, who went on to join Paul Nicholls). Vautour made his debut for his new yard in a thirty-runner four-year-old maiden at Navan in December, when he landed the odds in impressive style by five and a half lengths from Lieutenant Colonel. Vautour’s performance clearly warranted a step up in grade and five weeks later he lined up for the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer Novices' Hurdle at Punchestown. Although four of his five rivals were winners over hurdles themselves, among them Western Boy and Mr Fiftyone (both also bumper winners), Vautour was still sent off at long odds on to give his trainer a fourth win in the race in six years. Vautour had a lot less to spare at the end than at Navan and he beat Western Boy by three quarters of a length, impressing with the manner in which he travelled through the race, the first two finishing well clear. Vautour had been among the market leaders for the Supreme Novices’ even before the Moscow Flyer and he maintained his place, with most bookmakers having him at around 10/1, along with Irving and The Tullow Tank. Champagne Fever won the Deloitte Novices' Hurdle at Leopardstown in 2013, and Vautour went on to do the same, running out a most convincing winner by three lengths from odds-on The Tullow Tank. Vautour dictated a moderate pace before quickening impressively early in the straight. His jumping was fluent too, and he only needed to be ridden out with hands and heels; The Tullow Tank was making headway when he hit two out, but he recovered well and kept on, and essentially had no excuses. The performance suggested that Vautour would take all the beating at Cheltenham.

Vautour is French for vulture: a person or thing that preys greedily and ruthlessly on others. Vautour pretty well lived up to his name as he won the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham most impressively by six lengths, producing a performance around 10 lb above the usual standard for the race in a representative field. Vautour and Irving started the joint favourites at 7/2, with Vautour’s stablemate Wicklow Brave at 8/1, Gilgamboa at 9/1, and the Nicky Henderson-trained pair Vaniteux and Josses Hill at 11/1 and 14/1, split in the betting by The Liquidator at 12/1; the rest started at 16/1 or longer (among them Western Boy), while The Tullow Tank missed the race through no fault of his own (as explained in his essay). Vautour’s dominant performance, jumping superbly in front and quickening clear approaching the last, got the Cheltenham Festival off to a breathtaking start. Josses Hill finished second, closely followed by Vaniteux in third, with Sgt Reckless a staying-on fourth, Wilde Blue Yonder fifth, Wicklow Brave sixth and Western Boy seventh. Those that tried hardest to keep tabs on Vautour through the race, and then dropped away, were probably better than the result, and one of them, Gilgamboa, arguably the best-looking horse in the field, might have finished in the frame had he not made a bad mistake two out. Recent winners of the Supreme Novices’ have gone on to make their mark as much over fences as over hurdles and the first five finishers_as well as Gilgamboa_all look likely types to make more of an impact over the larger obstacles in time. Vautour gave Willie Mullins his fourth Supreme winner after Tourist Attraction (1995), Ebaziyan (2007) and Champagne Fever. Adamant Approach would have given him another winner in 2002 had he not come down at the last flight.

Only three rivals took on Vautour in the Tattersalls Ireland Champion Novices' Hurdle shortly after the end of the British season at Punchestown, but they were the County Hurdle and Mersey Novices’ Hurdle winner Lac Fontana, Vautour’s old rival Lieutenant Colonel, who had won a Grade 2 novice since finishing sixth in the Baring Bingham, and Apache Stronghold, fourth behind Lieutenant Colonel in that Grade 2 novice. The quartet had recorded twelve wins between them over hurdles during the season but Vautour was still sent off at 3/1-on, despite having suffered a well-publicised interrupted preparation (reportedly had a runny nose) which led to him switching races with Faugheen to give him a few days longer to recover. Front-running Vautour was workmanlike in victory, jumping left and not showing the same accuracy as at Cheltenham. He also needed to be shaken up early in the straight with the eventual runner-up Apache Stronghold still only a length or so behind. However, Vautour never looked like being beaten over the two-and-a-half-mile trip and he had three and a half lengths to spare over Apache Stronghold at the line, with a further six lengths back to the third Lieutenant Colonel.

Willie Mullins has enjoyed plenty of success with the progeny of Robin des Champs, who include the top-class staying chaser Sir des Champs, the high-class hurdler Quevega and Un Atout who won the previous year’s Champion Novices’ Hurdle before missing the latest season (should be back in 2014/15). Robin des Champs has become one of the most in-demand National Hunt stallions in Europe with his four-year-old son Un Temps Pour Tout joining David Pipe for £450,000 from France in November, while two of his three-year-old sons Onthewesternfront and Stone Hard were sold for €250,000 and €215,000 respectively in June, the former bought by the Coolmore partners (who sent him to Jonjo O’Neill) and the latter purchased by Mullins. Until his export to Ireland in 2008, Robin des Champs stood at Haras de Saint Voir in France, the stud which bred Vautour in partnership with Patrick Joubert, who is also the breeder of Silviniaco Conti (coincidentally, like Vautour, also out of a mare with Gazelle in her name_in his case Gazelle Lulu). Unlike Silviniaco Conti, however, Vautour is a thoroughbred, though his name might suggest otherwise; he happened to be foaled in a year when the naming system for non-thoroughbreds reached the letter `v’.

Following the death of Georges Vuillard, who bred the 2007 Supreme Novices’ runner-up Granit Jack among others, his widow Jacqueline decided in 2008 to sell their entire broodmare band. The mares were offered primarily to Haras de Saint Voir’s manager Nicolas de Lageneste who purchased Gazelle de Mai, along with such as Line Saj, the dam of the 2003 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris winner Line Marine, and Line Lawyer, who won twelve races and was a half-sister to Or Jack, who was second in the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris in 2000. Gazelle de Mai won twenty of her thirty-nine starts (and was placed ten times) in France for Guillaume Macaire, five of those wins coming as a two-year-old (the first of those in a claimer) before going on to success at up to twenty-one furlongs over hurdles and fences. She had produced seven foals at stud and was in foal to Martaline. The resulting colt died a month after his birth in 2008, and when Gazelle de Mai delivered a colt by Robin des Champs the following year it was decided she would be replaced by a foster mare for the foal_Vautour_who turned out to be much the best of Gazelle de Mai’s six offspring to make the track. For the record, her other winners in France are the cross-country chaser Belle Preuillade (by Royal Charter), Line Oceane (by Bonnet Rouge), a winner over hurdles and fences at up to nineteen furlongs, and Greg Jack (by Lost World) who was placed over jumps but gained his only win in his sole start on the Flat over fifteen furlongs. The good-topped Vautour travels strongly in his races and has made all on his last three starts. He stays two and a half miles and acts on soft and good to firm going.