Gold Cup Ante Post Beting

The Return of last years winner Kicking King ended in defeat at Punchestown and had an immediate impact on the Gold Cup Ante post beting market with The King moving out a half point, IT WAS billed as “The Return of the King” but just a little of the regal lustre was removed from the new champion of steeplechasing yesterday. Kicking King, having dominated the staying code on both sides of the Irish Sea last season, suffered a startling defeat by War Of Attrition in a race specially framed to suit his comeback run.

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Come next spring, when the glittering prizes are dispensed, this may be reduced to triviality but an expectant crowd at Punchestown, where bookmakers were betting on the favourite’s winning distance, was stunned into silence as the Gold Cup winner faded at the second-last fence in the listed Daily Star Chase. He was beaten three lengths by the hugely promising winner, his first defeat in almost a year.The genuine emotions of a trainer in such circumstances are often veiled by a public front but, paradoxically, there seemed no false bravado about Tom Taaffe when he pronounced himself “delighted”.

Taaffe claims he was fully aware that his champion might need the run, a suspicion endorsed when his short-priced favourite in the opening maiden hurdle tired badly.“I have what I wanted, which is a race under his belt,” Taaffe said. “I came here knowing they were short. My view is that it’s a long way to March and so, while I’m not into schooling horses on a racecourse, I didn’t want to have him 110 per cent today.”Nevertheless, in a field reduced to five by the late defection of Hi Cloy, Kicking King was 3-1 on to follow up his four grade one wins last season and it must be recorded as the first serious shock of this jumps campaign that he failed to do so.Despite the trip being just short of his best, and the horse showing his freshness by pulling energetically, Barry Geraghty, his regular jockey, was intent on not riding the seven-year-old too positively.

Tucking him in midfield off a steady pace set by Strong Project, he was regularly carried upsides the leader by extravagant leaps but persistently reined the horse in again.“He ran very keenly,” Geraghty confirmed later, “and he’s a better ride in a better race — it’s easier to sit in behind in the Gold Cup than it was out there.” On the far side of this sunlit course in rural Co Kildare, Geraghty still looked to have the race at his mercy as Kicking King jumped into the lead at the fourth last.Suddenly, however, it was clear that he had not shaken off either Pizarro, a hitherto disappointing chaser apparently revitalised by the shrewd Edward O’Grady, or War Of Attrition. They turned into the straight together and jumped the second-last in a line of three before Conor O’Dwyer sent the giant six-year-old into a decisive lead.Mouse Morris has been around plenty long enough to recognise a good horse when he gets one and he maintained in the spring that War Of Attrition was the best he had trained. He kept the faith even after he had started favourite and finished only seventh in the Arkle Chase at the Cheltenham Festival.

Morris was rewarded with a grade one prize at the Punchestown Festival and has now stepped the horse up to the type of distance that always seemed likely to suit him. “He looked fairly burly in the ring and there’s a lot left to work on but he showed a bit of spark out there,” the proud trainer said.As War Of Attrition is owned by Michael O’Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, the championship two-mile five-furlong chase at Cheltenham, now sponsored by the airline, is an obvious target.

“Everything is open to change,” Morris said with a twinkle, though he immediately ruled out chasing the million-pound Betfair bonus that is launched at Haydock next month. “We’ll keep him in Ireland and probably go to Down Royal next,” he said.For Taaffe and Geraghty, however, there is no cause to alter any plans. “He’s going to be spot-on for Haydock and that’s why I wanted to come here today,” Taaffe said, with his jockey adding: “Don’t tear up those betting slips.” Bookmakers heeded the words and Kicking King remains a general 2-1 favourite for the Gold Cup, although Coral eased the champion a fraction to 9-4.

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