Proof that Gordon Elliott is racing's man of the moment came with a stunning 41,276-1 six-timer at Navan on Sunday.
It was highlighted by Empire Of Dirt's Ladbrokes Troytown Chase success, which in turn provoked as unlikely a quote as has surely ever been uttered in a winners enclosure.
“Twitter would have been wild if we’d had no winner!” cracked the Co Meath trainer whose increasing threat to Willie Mullins’s near-decade long supremacy at the top of training tree was advertised with a vengeance.
Instead Twitter will be wild for some time with the reverberations from a remarkable show of racing strength that takes the 38-year-old trainer closer towards €2 million in prizemoney for the jumps season already and ultimately a chance to dethrone Mullins as champion trainer.
Elliott once again tried to play down his chances of doing that this season although he has never pretended he doesn’t have that ambition.
However the stamp of that ambition was all over a ‘Super-Sunday’ feat, and perhaps most of all in the massive 11-strong team he saddled for the Troytown.
That it was Empire Of Dirt that emerged best at 12-1 underlined once again the remorseless power of Michael O'Leary's Gigginstown Stud team which heavily supports Elliott who memorably trained Don Cossack to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup for them last March.
however it also reflected a broader picture of shifting sands within the jump racing scene.
Unequal struggle
It was Empire Of Dirt's first run for Elliott since his former trainer Colm Murphy gave up what he described as an unequal struggle to try and make the game pay during the summer.
Considering Empire Of Dirt won at the Cheltenham festival last March it was another significant reflection of how so many in racing’s middle-rank are struggling to stay afloat.
Instead the trend remains directed towards hugely powerful teams of horses concentrated among an ownership and training elite. Sunday’s action has only stressed once again how Elliott is very much at the forefront of the new order.
The Longwood-based trainer was quick to pay tribute to Murphy and outlined plans to ultimately aim Empire Of Dirt at April’s Aintree Grand National, the race which launched Elliott to stardom less than a decade ago with Silver Birch’s unlikely victory.
Empire Of Dirt certainly jumped a lot better compared to last year’s Troytown when he fell at the third last when travelling well. But any forensic examination of the impressive performance by his new trainer was for later.
“I was trying to watch them all so I only copped him five out!” said Elliott.
“I thought we had four good chances so to get first and fourth (the 7-2 favourite Noble Endeavor (sic) is great. It’s been a lucky race for us, it’s our local track and we like to support it. In fairness to Colm he said the horse would win one of these big races and he was right,” he added.
It was Elliott's third Troytown in a row and Empire Of Dirt completed a hat-trick on the card for jockey Bryan Cooper who'd earlier also scored on Death Duty in the Grade Three Monksfield Novice Hurdle and on Bull Ride in a handicap, all in Gigginstown's colours.
However it was top amateur Jamie Codd who brought up the stunning six-timer for the O'Leary team s Three Swallowsnick won the bumper from the Mullins-trained Glens Harmony.
“It’s a joy to be working with such a man. He’s come a long way in a short space of time,” Codd said in praise of Elliott.
“They’re a young team and they’re just going forward. Ten years ago in a point to point I think I rode my first winner for him. I’ve been with him that long and I have to thank him for putting up with me that long!
“His mind never stops thinking – he’s just a very, very good trainer and he’s got the firepower there now to really push on,” he added.
That’s what is likely to send a shiver down the backs of those trying to compete with racing’s man of the moment, the idea that he also looks to be the man for the future.
