AS the field gallops around the home turn in the Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup they will be faced with three final obstacles.
The ones in plain view are the two fences in the home straight but there is another barrier which has claimed more runners than those two put together.
The Gold Cup is considered to be jump racing’s premier test for three-mile chasers, except that the conditions of the race stipulate that it is contested over a distance of three miles, two and a half furlongs. And the devil truly does lie in the detail.
Through the years some of the cream of jumping came, saw but did not conquer as their dreams turned sour in those last 550 yards with the likes of Wayward Lad, One Man and Florida Pearl turned from winners to also-rans.
Stamina is in the intangible but indispensable quality and Richard Johnson knows that made the difference in the 2000 Gold Cup.
“I was lucky enough to ride Florida Pearl when he won an Irish Gold Cup and he felt like an aeroplane,” Johnson said. "He won an RSA Chase at Cheltenham but that extra two furlongs in the Gold Cup was too much. Luckily for me because I won on Looks Like Trouble. Florida Pearl was on my quarters at the last and finished five lengths behind me.”
Johnson will be riding Native River in today’s race and he knows that the horse will not lack stamina after his blitzing, front-running victory in the Welsh Grand National, slogging through the mud at Chepstow in December. “Every time I asked for a bit more he kept producing and, off topweight, I thought it was a mighty performance.
When I got stuck into him turning in he just kept finding. It was soft ground but he finished like he had more to offer.
"The best horses are talented but they also give a hundred per cent. When they come along you need to grab them with both hands and I was lucky to get the ride on Native River at Aintree last year.”
Johnson picked up the spare ride on Native River at the Grand National meeting when he won Mildmay Novices’ Chase. It was Johnson’s first Grade One winner in two years and the champion jockey seems tailor-made for the chestnut with the white stripe dripping down his nose. “Well, we’re both not very intelligent,” Johnson added modestly. “Actually, I think he’s quite intelligent in that he’s neat with his feet over a fence.
“His attitude is what I like the most. He’s almost saying, ‘Come on, ask me to go’. He’s not particularly complicated – he tries, he jumps and he stays. He’s a lovely horse to ride because he wants to help you and he answers your every call.”
Johnson knows that they will be there to be shot at in the half mile – with stable companion Cue Card and twice Gold Cup runner-up Djakadam likely to be at the head of the queue – but he also knows that Native River will not be firing blanks from that home turn. “He’ll sit in front but you know when you ask him there’s more to come where. With a lot of front runners they run on their nerves and there’s no more left, but there is with him.
“In my eyes he ticks all the boxes and I don’t think we’ve got to the bottom of him yet.”
If Johnson is right about Native River, it could look like trouble for the rest.
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