Tom O’Brien shines on Coole Cody for Williams delight

COOLE Cody (Evan Williams/Tom O’Brien) made almost all the running to win the Grade 3 Paddy Power Gold Cup despite being pestered by a loose horse and making a couple of significant errors, and his rider deserves plenty of credit for steering the nine-year-old novice to victory at odds of 10/1.

Left in second when Siruh Du Lac unseated Tom Scudamore spectacularly at the first fence, he jumped on at the third fence, and survived a scare when slipping badly on landing after the next.

Coole Cody recovered quickly and was soon almost 10 lengths ahead of the pack. He jumped well from that point until getting the third last fence wrong, but he kept finding for pressure as others faltered, and although both Spiritofthegames (Dan/Harry Skelton) threw down a challenge in the straight, the winner drew off in the final climb to beat him by three and a quarter lengths.

Al Dancer (Nigel/Sam Twiston-Davies) was a length back in third, and Kauto Riko stayed on from well off the pace to grab fourth from the fading Sky Pirate

A delighted Evan Williams has had a few near misses here before, and was relieved to land a big prize, which he put down in large part to the input of injured stable jockey Adam Wedge: “It’s great – we’ve been second, third and fourth in this race, so it’s always nice to get your head in front in a big way. He’s won here before for Michael Blake (on this card in 2017), and Mr Blake had done a smashing job with the horse. It’s often the case a change of scenery and a change of direction can just give a little bit of impetus in a different direction, so we are very lucky to have got him.

“His run here last time told me more than enough and Adam Wedge, who rode him that day, said to be very aggressive with him. Tom has been aggressive here in a Triumph Hurdle before (riding Barizan) and that ended in disaster! But it worked out today.

“I wouldn’t have thought to have gone about things in this way, that’s why a good stable jockey is so important, and Adam put the plan into action. Without his input, we wouldn’t have had the result today, so I am very grateful to him.

“Mr and Mrs Clifford put an awful lot into the game. They have a lot of horses on the flat and over jumps with a lot of trainers. It is great we can repay them with a good win. Every year goes by and you are looking for a nice horse but the little wins, the bread and butter, are all sweet and we are very much of the opinion that we will tickle away with anything we have got.”

Blind Side winner

On The Blind Side just got the better of Paul Nolan’s Mrs Milner in a close finish to the Listed Paddy Power Games Handicap Hurdle. The Nicky Henderson-trained eight-year-old got involved in a battle for supremacy from the home turn with the runner-up and last year’s winner Golan Fortune, winning by a neck in the end, with Golan Future a further length and three-quarters in arrears of the Nico de Boinville-ridden winner.

Dead-heat or not?

The Listed Karndean Designflooring Mares’ Bumper produced a controversial dead-heat with Dan Skelton’s Elle Est Belle (16/5) and Harry Fry’s Ishkhara Lady (11/2) sharing the spoils, although live pictures suggested that the latter was a clear, if narrow, winner.

The problem was that in fading light, the judge could not be certain of calling a definitive result, and something similar happened a few years ago in the same race.

Cheltenham’s Director of racing Simon Claisse says that the timings of the last race of the day will be looked at to avoid the problem of poor light in the future, but it is simply unacceptable that the results being called incorrectly from photo finishes remains an issue in Britain – and only in Britain – in the 21st century.

No doubt lessons will be learned.