Report Rest of yesterday's actionNoel Meade's Nicanor kicked off a remarkable day for the Irish when his outstanding Royal & SunAlliance Hurdle defeat of hot favourite Denman was a prelude to a four-winner haul for the afternoon.
It brought the Irish tally for the week to seven, with half the festival still to come, and last year's record haul of nine victories might well fall today.
In the midst of such extravagance, with more than half the races run this year already in the bag, it was surely apt for Meade to saddle just the second winner of his career at Cheltenham.
For years the champion Irish trainer's failure to win here was an unfortunate given at the festival. Sausalito Bay in 2000 finally broke the hoodoo, but Sweet Wake's defeat in the Tuesday opener suggested the bad days might have returned. Meade's reaction was characteristically decisive.
"I drank the best part of a bottle of gin!" he announced in the winners enclosure yesterday.
Any signs of hangover, however, had evaporated on the back of Nicanor's victory.
A typically flamboyant Paul Carberry ride delivered Nicanor at just the right time to overhaul Denman after the last and power to a two-and-a-half length success.
"Six years is a long time to wait for your second festival winner, but I've always loved this horse. He could be a Gold Cup horse one day," said an exultant Meade. "This makes up for yesterday. Sweet Wake was very distressed after the race."
Carberry added: "I was further back than I wanted to be, but at the top of the hill I was absolutely cantering. It's a brilliant feeling."
Nicanor will go chasing next season and is already a general 10 to 1 shot for the SunAlliance Chase, where he could again clash with Denman, whose trainer, Paul Nicholls, reported: "He got caught a bit flat-footed by the other horse. But it's all a bonus because he's a chaser in the making."
Carberry wasn't finished for the day, and although the main Irish fancies for the Weatherbys Champion Bumper failed to fire, the distinctively named Hairy Molly stepped into the breach with a 33 to 1 success under the former champion jockey.
Owned by the four-member, Listowel-based FTB syndicate, whose initials reputedly stand for a well known phrase involving begrudgery, Hairy Molly was a landmark success for 77-year-old trainer Joe Crowley.
Just last Friday the man whose sons-in-law include the champion trainer Aidan O'Brien and champion jockey Pat Smullen threatened to hand in his licence after losing an appeal to the Turf Club against a 60-day ban for one of his horses.
"I don't need the hassle," he fumed last week.
Crowley decided to miss the hassle of negotiating the massive crowds here and stayed at home. He also missed a power-packed Carberry finish that got Hairy Molly home by only a head from the 20 to 1 shot Pressgang.
Slap in the middle of the Irish four-timer was Sky's The Limit, whose four-length rout in the Coral Cup provoked memories of the great novice champion Golden Cygnet.
Both carry the colours of the former Turf Club senior steward Ray Rooney, and the ease of Sky's The Limit's win echoed Golden Cygnet's 1978 Supreme success.
Barry Geraghty was able to ease down half-way up the straight, and with Strangely Brown in second it knocked on the head any thoughts that Irish horses are at a disadvantage in handicaps this week.
"He hasn't run since December because we wanted to preserve his handicap mark," explained trainer Edward O'Grady. "But nobody expects a horse to win that easily. I suspect we might have to go for conditions races now. Aintree is a possibility."
Geraghty was also doubling up, having landed an incident-packed SunAlliance Chase on Paul Nicholls' Star De Mohaison. The main Irish hope, Our Ben, fell at the third, and Back In Front exited at the second last when challenging.
"He's only five and got the 10lb allowance, which is a great help," said Geraghty. "But he's got a massive future."
