What's Rare Is Wonderful

Only the most unromantic can fail to appreciate the resonance of Killahara Castle's 200-1 Thurles victory. A locally trained no-hoper beating an odds-on Willie Mullins favourite is headline friendly stuff. And some will argue it's somehow proof of the everyone being equal above and under the turf bit. It's a nice idea but it doesn't disguise how the weekend's most significant triple-digit figure is in reality the near 100 runners Gordon Elliott says he could have over Christmas.

That's an astonishing display of firepower. If it happens it will be almost twice the amount Elliott ran last Christmas. That was when his great rival Willie Mullins saddled an astounding 22 winners through the four days in Ireland. Both men will go into next week in rare form and it will be a surprise if their dominance doesn't extend across the board of the upcoming festive action.

The concentration of talent within the Elliott and Mullins teams is certainly reflected in ante-post betting for Leopardstown's seven Grade One events where Henry De Bromhead's Monalee is the only favourite not trained by the top two. But the numbers Elliott is talking about could make him a threat in practically every race throughout the four days. And while Mullins may not fire as many bullets, last year's results indicate what can happen when his eye is in.

The plusses and minuses of such concentration have been hashed and rehashed for a long time now. And it's never irrelevant to point out in the hashing how it's just a decade since Elliott began training in unlikely and unpromising circumstances. The prospect of assembling such a powerful festival team is just another detail in what is already one of the most remarkable, and maybe even romantic, stories in Irish racing history.

The Killahara Castle upset is lovely but it smacks of schmaltz to start reading too much significance into it. What's rare is wonderful and while the SP captures the imagination it doesn't alter how National Hunt racing's capacity to throw up romantic storylines is fast declining all the time. Maybe that's regrettable and maybe it's not. But it is the reality.

So is the fact that it will be at least a year and a half between races for Douvan should he make it back to action. Faugheen managed to overcome such a lengthy layoff in style but what's rare really is wonderful and it's asking a lot for the Mullins team to pull off a similar feat with another of Rich Ricci's superstars.

Then again Douvan is exceptional. When Mullins unambiguously describes one as the best he's had it's impossible to ignore the significance. And when that animal then routinely - and at his leisure - beats the snot out of a Gold Cup winning talent like Sizing John we're into freakish territory. Of course Sizing John improved for a step up in trip but some of us have always pondered if the same mightn't be true for Douvan.

Maybe the chance to find out will still happen. Maybe all that blazing talent will sustain. It's another nice thought. But the reality at this stage is it must be unlikely.

On to other matters and there seems to be a divergence of opinion of whether Oisin Orr was lucky or unlucky in relation to the Dundalk incident that saw him get a 14 day ban for dangerous riding on Friday night. The champion apprentice rode Dancing Doll in a handicap and the Killian Hennessy ridden Long Journey Home came down early in the straight.

From the normal TV coverage Orr's riding didn't look great. Apparently from other angles it looks even worse. Some maintain he was as lucky to get just 14 days as Hennessy was not to be hurt. But it's interesting to ponder what the penalty might have been if Long Journey Home hadn't come down.

Is there a good chance it may have been passed off as just careless riding and a token day or two handed out?

It would have been the same manoeuvre to try and make a gap where none existed. Technically it would have been still offside to try it. Yet in most other circumstances such manoeuvres are treated in 'one of those things' terms, the sort of move jockeys are expected to make, which is where Orr might be forgiven for believing he was a little unlucky too.

These manoeuvre's don't just happen. They occur because jockeys operate in the culture that applies. Taking a chance and making one's own room, or accidentally on purpose letting one hang, has been allowed to become ingrained. Getting tough after the inevitable happens smacks of closing the door after the horse has bolted.

And in a much broader sense it makes the French decision, in the cause of harmonisation, to ape the interference rules here rather than stick with their own all the harder to credit.

On to something much more trivial and I sometimes despair when hearing the phrase 'media training.' Because it's basically training to shovel bullshit as fluently as possible while saying and revealing as little as possible.

The line that racing's star performers need to be trained to interact with the media in order to promote the industry is regularly peddled - often most enthusiastically by those doing the courses - as if jockeys in particular have some duty to produce on cue endless byte-size pieces of anodyne drivel. As if that's what the world really needs more of.

It's certainly not what racing coverage on any kind of platform needs more of. Coverage is not the same as promotion. There should be no obligation to keep racing's best side out. Trying to provide a realistic glimpse into this fascinating sport should be the purpose instead. And if that makes the sport uncomfortable it says more about the sport than its coverage.

What really works in any kind of media is authenticity. It's hard to precisely define but just as anyone can recognise cliché when they hear it we can also immediately recognise the real thing. Any audience worth its salt will prefer Ryan Moore being awkward but real rather than producing bland sound-bites which reveal nothing about anything bar media horror of dead-air.

Lester Piggott never used one word when none would do. Yet he was a captivating figure for nearly half a century. The fascination was with the man himself, his talent and his obsessive will to win. That fascination existed not because of what he said but what he did.

It's a different communications age now but not so different that the bona fide still doesn't trump bullshit, no matter how fluent it is.

And finally, on Friday Jessica Harrington won the Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year Award. If you want an example of authentic pioneering talent then look no further than this truly remarkable trainer. Read:

Age Just A Number For Pioneering Jessica Harrington