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PHIL AGIUS |
Weblog: Sports editor's view
Well done Commander - just a shame you were three years too late
GOOD NEWS: I backed Imperial Commander to win at Cheltenham!
BAD NEWS: It was in 2007...and he was seventh.
Well done Imperial Commander and all your connections on an amazing day for the Twiston-Davies stable.
Regardless of the excuses for Paul Nicholls' aces Kauto Star and Denman the 2010 champ was a worthy winner but of course I didn't have a penny on him.
That wasn't the case, however, in 2007, when I was lucky enough to be at the course and, having done plenty of diligent research, quietly fancied him for the Ballymore Properties Hurdle.
With Aran Concerto a hot favourite, Imperial Commander was allowed to go off at 25-1 and though, as the form comment reminds me, he provided feint hope when moving into second spot from four out to three out, as he faded to seventh, beaten almost 15 lengths by Massini's Maguire, I formed the impression that I had probably been wrong in thinking him a star of the future.
But in fact that's where I was wrong - as his wins on five of his six subsequent visits to Cheltenham have proved. And I don't think I've been on him for any of them.
It's not the first time the weight of my token interest has been too much for a future champion in a much easier race.
I was on the infield at Aintree, just past the final fence, on Grand National day in 1992 when I backed future two-mile hero Viking Flagship at 8-1 in the Cordon Bleu Handicap Hurdle - he finished third off 10st 4lb.
That was his final run over hurdles and he then won 11 of his first 15 starts over fences.
So, rather like Eric Morecambe's piano playing, I'm backing all the right horses, just not, necessarily, in the right races.
That's not quite true, as bizarrely I managed to make a profit on Cheltenham this year with the magnificent record of two winners in 26 races - Copper Bleu and the wonderful, fantastic, life-saving Pigeon Island in the getting-out-stakes on Friday.
Of more interest to trends followers, no doubt, will be those horses I backed in the novice hurdles, future Gold Cup winners the lot of them.
I would expect the most likely candidate for future greatness is Flat Out, not much use to me after finishing fifth to Menorah in the Festival openerat 20-1 but a very promising youngster in the Willie Mullins stable.
And when he wins the 2013 Gold Cup I will definitely be on...
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