WHEN the white flag drops just after 1.30pm on Tuesday, March 12th, and the now famous Cheltenham roar erupts to send the runners on their way to kickstart the 2024 Cheltenham Festival, for many, it will mark the completion of a journey which began years earlier.

In fact, for over 30% of the runners, their path to racing’s equivalent of the Olympic Games began point-to-pointing in fields dotted across the length and breadth of the country.

No handler in that sphere will be as well represented at the festival as the all-conquering champion Colin Bowe.

From a farm in the foothills of the Blackstairs mountains in the Wexford village of Kiltealy, the stamp of his Milestone Stables operation will likely be on more ex-pointers at Cheltenham this year than any other.

Like any sporting manager, point-to-point producers are in a results-based business, and the most sought-after results come in Prestbury Park, as Bowe succinctly explains: “For us, you need your horses to end up on the big stage, and the biggest of stages in racing is at Cheltenham, it is bragging rights for us all.”

Festival winners

So far, the Festival has been a successful stage for the Wexford man. A total of 13 Festival races have been claimed by his former pointers to date, with pictures of each of those successes proudly adorning the walls of the yard’s office, headlined by Envoi Allen and Samcro, two horses who between them can boast a combined five Grade 1 Festival victories.

The latter was once famously described by his owner Michael O’Leary, as ‘not the next coming of Jesus Christ’ in his typically direct style, but in winning back-to-back Grade 1s at the Festival, he has achieved more than most.

It would also seem as though his journey is not yet over, as he could re-appear at the Festival once again this year, eight years after the Goffs graduate was entrusted to Bowe by his then owner Douglas Taylor.

“Douglas sent him to me with a nice little bit of work done; he looked really well at the time, and we just finished him to have him ready to run in his four-year-old maiden,” Bowe admits.

“He was a gent of a horse, he had a really good attitude, he jumped well, he ticked every box, really, to be honest.”

After making a winning debut at one of Bowe’s local fixtures in Monksgrange, the son of Germany was hot property when offered at the Goffs UK Aintree sale, just five days after his maiden success.

The standout lot at the inaugural edition of the boutique sale at the Grand National fixture, he was knocked down to Gordon Elliott for the sales-topping sum of £335,000, with Bowe able to explain why Elliott was so keen to add Samcro to his Cullentra Stables team.

“He beat Elegant Escape in his four-year-old maiden and, at the time, Gordon was training Elegant Escape before he was sold to the Tizzards at the Punchestown Sale,” he said.

“That probably was a good yardstick for Gordon to buy him when he went over to the sales in Aintree.”

In the 11 years since the hard-fought victory of Same Difference in the 2013 Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Chase supplied Bowe with a breakthrough first Festival success, scarcely a year has gone by where his graduates have not visited the hollowed turf of the winner’s enclosure in the Cotswolds.

Early success

Yet in spite of such considerable fortune, Bowe doesn’t have to give too much thought before swiftly confirming his highlights, as he puts forward the 2014 Arkle victory of Western Warhorse and the three successes of Envoi Allen.

“Western Warhorse came early in my career, and it was a big kickstart to be able to get the name out there after a Grade 1 win at Cheltenham.

“Envoi Allen has won at three Festivals now; not many horses achieve that, and he is still going strong.

“There is a lot of pressure with those big-priced horses. The big ones can do you an awful lot of good, but also an awful lot of harm if they don’t work out. Thankfully, he has worked out very well.”

The pressure for Bowe and his colleagues in the point-to-point handler ranks begins each June when they flock en masse to Kill each summer for the Goffs Arkle sale to kickstart the process of restocking their stables with the pick of the unraced three-year-old talent.

“Since I started going to Goffs to buy horses, the quality has got stronger and stronger every year,” he admits.

“We would do a lot of our shopping there. What you buy there defines your year. If you make good decisions up there, you have a good year, but if you make bad decisions at the sale, you have a bad year.

“They are a very important few days, the Arkle has been a very lucky sale for me.”

New talent

The fruits of that are evident in Captain Teague, who will be front and centre in his team of ex-pointers at this year’s Cheltenham Festival.

Already a Grade 1 winner for Paul Nicholls this season, the six-year-old has always been the apple of his former trainer’s eye.

“I bought him for €70,000 at Goffs in 2021, and he had a real bit of presence when you went to have a look at him. There was a good bit of size about him, and his sire Doyen had been quite lucky for me.

“He was a very straightforward horse in the time that we had him, we were able to run him in his four-year-old maiden in early February.”

Notably, that debut came at Knockanard in 2022, a race that Bowe had won in two of the three preceding renewals, including with another of his subsequent Grade 1 victors Ferny Hollow.

“We target that race a little bit each year. I would pick out a nice one to go down there, and he would have been in the top couple that year.

“I think if they stay at Knockanard they have a great chance of being a nice horse. You could have a nice horse that is cantering going to the second-last fence there, and then they would pull up before the last. It is a stiff track, so you need a horse with good stamina that stays well to go and win there.

“He was the one we went to it with back in 2022, and he was good on the day. Tom Malone bought him afterwards, and he has worked out well since, thankfully.”

A first trip to the Festival last year saw Captain Teague outrun his 40/1 starting price on just his second start since his maiden point victory by finishing third, and the first British-trained horse home in the Grade 1 Champion Bumper.

The result certainly pleased connections who were not overly targeting the race, and he has since built upon that in his novice hurdle campaign this season.

“I met Paul Nicholls last year, and he told me that he wasn’t really training him hard for the Champion Bumper; he was going into the race thinking that if he had finished in the first half dozen or so, he would have been very happy.

“It was a big run last year, and he is stepping forward this season. He hurdled a lot better in Newbury when he won the [Grade 1] Challow Hurdle, and he stayed well that day.

“He handles deep ground very well and is definitely a live one for the Festival this year.”

Gold Cup

Softer ground would also play to the strengths of Bowe’s Gold Cup candidate Gerri Colombe. He too was a debut four-year-old maiden winner, with his success coming at Lingstown in 2020, although the ability of a subsequent four-time Grade 1 winner wasn’t always evident on the gallops.

“We liked the horse, he came recommended from Peter Vaughan. You would know his attitude was good, but he wouldn’t have shown you much speed at home; he wouldn’t have been burning up the gallops.

“But he won well, to be fair to him, at Lingstown, which is a good track. It’s usually always a strong maiden there, and he has proven that since.”

Gerri Colombe is one of a number of horses flying the flag of Brian Acheson’s Robcour operation going into the Cheltenham Festival, and it is an outfit that Bowe knows well, having been entrusted with providing a number of their store purchases with a pointing education in recent years.

“Mags O’Toole recommended me to train one or two point-to-pointers for him. Gerri probably broke the ice for him.

“He had bought Gerri from me after he won at Lingstown, and the following season I trained a couple of four-year-old mares for him.

“Jenny Flex was the first; she won a point-to-point at Cork racecourse during Covid, and then Music Of Tara won at Monksgrange in that same season.

“I think it is deadly that he is using point-to-points to educate many of the horses that he buys as stores because the horses are getting a great education, but he is also buying a year.

“He ends up with a hardened novice who has an extra year under their belt, but they are still a novice, which I think is a massive plus.

“But he is having some run this season and, after training for him, I can see why it happens for him.

“He is a very easy man to train for; he doesn’t like over-racing them. He waits and waits to give the horses the time they need, so it’s no surprise it is working out for him.”

Another Bowe-trained winner to end up in the Robcour colours is Qualimita. This French-bred daughter of Muhtathir (sire of Envoi Allen) made an unforgettable debut in a Fairyhouse point-to-point in April 2023, winning by a distance. She was sold, a week later, at the Goffs Punchestown Sale for a record-breaking €500,000. the highest price for a point-to-pointer anywhere in 2023. Sent to Gordon Elliott, Qualimita made her debut in a listed bumper at Navan last November and finished a very promising third to Only By Night and Mongibello, those two going on to win their next starts by wide margins.

For Bowe and all the point-to-point handlers alike, their involvement with Cheltenham contenders might long have ended, however, as a key cog in their journey to potential Festival glory, the anticipation ahead of the big day does not lessen, as he concludes: “Cheltenham is is the big day; you would certainly feel it on the morning any of them are going to run in a big race at the Festival because that is where we all want winners.” This article is taken from The Irish Field Cheltenham Magazine 2024, in partnership with Goffs.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE MAGAZINE