'No bottle, no battle' – Samcro team scratching their heads after Ryanair flop

Hand it to Michael O’Leary, he’s as good in defeat as he is when he’s winning. Sharjah had scarcely passed the post in front in the business tycoon’s own Ryanair Hurdle before he was busy congratulating the winning connections.

With his hand outstretched: “Congrats, well done and enjoy it,” he said, before scuttling off to the maroon corner of the Leopardstown parade ring where those closest to Samcro wore a look of bemusement.

Then came the debrief. “Ah, there’s something wrong with him – sure he can’t beat Tombstone for God’s sake.

“He didn't battle. No bottle, no battle. Unless we can find something he won’t run again this year and we’d put him away until next season and go chasing with him,” O’Leary added.

Watch the Ryanair Hurdle here

More questions than answers then for the Samcro camp. In a week when Buveur D’Air showed he was beatable, the believers who sent Samcro off favourite to get the better of the dual champion at Newcastle got their fingers burnt again.

Returned the 6-4 favourite, Samcro could only manage fifth behind the rapidly-improving Sharjah, and while O’Leary is convinced the real Samcro hasn’t been with us thus far this season, nothing in the stewards report offered any explanation for the perplexing display.

In his honest assessment of the performance, O’Leary added: “Maybe he’s one of these horses who did it all too easy as a novice and can’t do it now against the big boys – which is a possibility – but we’d be more inclined to think there’s something wrong with him.

“He wouldn’t win a chase if he ran like that either. I mean, Sharjah didn’t get near him last year – he was in a different parish.

Sharjah (pink): jumping the last hurdle in front

“Either he was a flat-track bully last year, which I don’t think he was, as last year’s novices were a good bunch, or else something’s wrong with him. The bubble is burst anyway.”

If the dream is fading with Samcro, the opposite can be said of Sharjah, whose stock continues to rise.

Ahead of the race, it was Willie Mullins's Melon who attracted most attention and when questioned about last year’s Champion Hurdle runner-up, the champion trainer certainly erred on the side of caution.

“Just with the way our horses have been running throughout the past few days, the ones who’ve been running without a previous run, they’ve raced as though they’re short,” Mullins mused.

“Today’s been better between here [Leopardstown] and Limerick but there’s going to be plenty of pace in this race. It’s going to be a searching test.”

It may not have turned into the test Mullins suggested but, as predicted, fitness counted for a lot.

Samcro (white cap) and Melon (yellow): jumping the last in contention before fading after the lastCredit: Patrick McCann

Melon could yet have his say again in the Champion Hurdle but it could be the case that Sharjah is just a massively progressive horse who now needs to be considered a genuine contender for the big one.

Patrick Mullins was left in little doubt, and said: “To be honest, I was probably one of those [who didn’t give Sharjah credit coming into the race] as well.

“He got a terrible fall here last year and I think it’s just taken him six months to get over that. Now that he’s got his confidence back he’s a different horse.”

He added: “Rich and Susannah [Ricci] are big supporters of our yard. They put a lot of time, effort and money in and it’s great for them to get results like this. He fell with me on board last year so it’s nice to be able to repay the favour on him.”

Fitting reception

Speaking of favours, no person has offered more of themselves to racing than Dr Adrian McGoldrick has for the best part of a decade.

Fitting that the outgoing chief medical officer received a hearty round of applause and sendoff in the parade ring prior to the big race.

Typical of the man who always has time to talk despite being one of the busiest in the game, his mind was on other people rather than himself when asked to sum up what the reception meant to him.

McGoldrick said: “To be honest, what’s really made my day is seeing Pat Smullen here today. Pat’s fantastic. What he’s come through is amazing. Seeing him here is more important than anything I’ve achieved in the past 11 years.”

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