After two days at the Festival when the punters landed blow after blow, the bookmakers clawed their way back on Thursday on an afternoon when every favourite was beaten. Envoi Allen’s defeat of Shishkin, the even-money favourite, in the Ryanair Chase was the first big result for the ring but there was better yet to come 40 minutes later, as Sire Du Berlais, an unconsidered 33-1 chance, recorded the third Festival success of his career in the Grade One Stayers’ Hurdle.
The famous green and gold colours of JP McManus have been a danger sign for the bookies at the Festival for 30 years or more, but it was the layers who were cheering as Mark Walsh brought Sire Du Berlais with a strong run at the final flight on the way to a three-quarter-length success. At 11, he was the oldest winner of the race since 1986, and though he could boast two Festival wins over course and distance, in 2019 and 2020, both had arrived in the Pertemps Final earlier on the card.
A return to that race had, in fact, been the initial plan for Gordon Elliott’s gelding, but Sire Du Berlais failed to run in a qualifier and so ended up as a hopeful runner in the Grade One feature event instead.
“I thought he ran well at Navan the last day as he was giving a lot of weight away,” McManus said after greeting his 71st Festival winner. “I thought he deserved to take his chance. I’ve not had too many 33-1 winners but old Creon [50-1 in the 2004 Pertemps Final] won at a big price and Kadoun [at the same price in the 2006 Pertemps] but this one, I’m afraid, went unbacked, but still we will just enjoy it just the same.”
Dashel Drasher, another outsider at 40-1, was second past the post behind Sire Du Berlais, but relegated to third for causing interference at the final flight, leaving Elliott with a 1-2 after Teahupoo, the favourite, was promoted to second.
Envoi Allen, who took the Ryanair by two and three-quarter lengths from Shishkin earlier in the afternoon with Rachael Blackmore, seemed destined to be one of Elliott’s stable stars himself in the early part of his career, when he ran up an 11-race winning streak that included Festival wins in the Bumper and Ballymore Novice Hurdle.
His owners moved their horses out of Elliott’s yard before the 2021 Festival, however, when a photograph of the trainer sitting on a dead horse surfaced on the internet, and before Thursday’s win he had failed to add to his Festival tally in two attempts.
In winning, he succeeded where Sir Gerhard, another runner in the same colours, had failed in Wednesday’s Brown Advisory Novice Chase, by completing a full house of Grade One Festival wins in a bumper, over hurdles and over fences.
“I was hoping he would put his best foot forward and he duly did,” said Henry de Bromhead, who took over as Envoi Allen’s trainer. “We’ve tried to leave no stone unturned but whatever we are doing now seems to be working.
“I’m not sure what we do [next]. He stays three miles and the Gold Cup is the race. I’d say if [Cheveley Park’s] A Plus Tard wasn’t in it, he would have possibly run in it. We will see what we do next and just enjoy today.”
Shishkin, the runner-up, was the best-backed horse of the day from a British stable, but Nicky Henderson’s runner was jumping and hanging to his left from an early stage and did well even to make the frame after a serious blunder three from home. It was a second costly failure at the meeting in as many years, after he was pulled up behind Energumene after starting at 5-6 for last year’s Champion Chase.
Fakenham 1.00 Weebill 1.40 Mad About Sally 2.20 Nothingtochance 3.00 Le Tueur 3.45 Big Boy Bobby 4.20 Pride Of Hawridge 5.00 Sir Jack Yeats
Doncaster 1.20 Idealdes Villerets 2.00 Big Changes 2.40 Flirtatious Girl 3.15 Son Of The Somme 4.00 Horacio Apple’s 4.40 Couldbeaweapon 5.15 Luckie Seven
Cheltenham 1.30 Blood Destiny 2.10 Filey Bay (nb) 2.50 Letsbeclearboutit 3.30 A Plus Tard (nap) 4.10 Secret Investor 4.50 Impervious 5.30 Iroko
Wolverhampton 4.35 Rivas Rob Roy 5.20 Lilandra 6.00 Miss Sligo 6.30 Jenny Ren 7.00 Open Market 7.30 One Hart 8.00 Dreams Delivered 8.30 Poetic Force
Newcastle 5.05 Rock Chant 5.45 Qaasid 6.15 Carbis Bay 6.45 Spinaround 7.15 Elisheva 7.45 Nelson Gay8.15 Abbey’s Dream
“He wasn’t really travelling like you hoped he would have been, even early on, he just didn’t look as though he was that happy about it,” Henderson said.
“He’s done really well to finish where he has.
“It’s odd for him to go left like that. He never looked comfortable, but look where he’s finished and how he’s finished. He made one bad mistake coming down the hill but got back into it, so he’s determined if nothing else.
“We’ve got to sort out why he was going left-handed, as it’s not like him to do that. He schooled on Monday and you’ve never seen a horse jump five fences straighter, quicker and more narrow.
I’ve no excuses but it was unlike him to do that.”
The first setback for the punters on a difficult day was the defeat of Mighty Potter in the opening Turners Novice Chase, after Elliott’s six-year-old had been backed down to 4-6. He could not cope with the finishing kick of Paul Nicholls’s Stage Star, who stayed on to give Britain’s champion trainer his first Festival winner since 2020, after a run of 53 losers at the meeting.
It was one of only two winners on the day for a British stable, as Ireland increased its tally to 15 at the meeting so far with five more victories, going into a final day when Irish trainers likely to field all seven favourites.
