Superstar Energumene will prove hard act to follow

How do you begin to contemplate replacing the irreplaceable? That is the question connections will try to answer following the retirement of Energumene.

Arguably the greatest to don the blue silks of Brighton & Hove Albion and Hearts chief Tony Bloom, Energumene swaggered to back-to-back Queen Mother Champion Chase victories at the peak of his powers – becoming the horse to end Willie Mullins’ long wait for an elusive win in that Cheltenham Festival contest in the process.

The glory days would become less frequent as the years went by and age would take its toll, but he did provide his team with one last memorable moment at Fairyhouse this Easter, before the curtain came down on a glorious career at the Punchestown Festival.

“He’s been an absolute star and we’ve had some brilliant days out and he will be impossible to replace,” said Bloom’s racing manager Sean Graham.

“We had some great days with him, he won two Champion Chases at Cheltenham, two Champion Chases at Punchestown and there’s not many horses who have picked up as much prize-money as he has over the years.

“Our job will be to find another Energumene, and I hope I’m proved wrong, but they don’t grow on trees and I doubt we’ll be lucky enough to have another one like him.

“He’s certainly the National Hunt horse who has given us the most pleasure and he is going to be very hard to replace.”

The Energumene story began at Larkhill in early 2018, but it would nearly be two years until he was sighted in the Bloom silks with which he would become synonymous, as a patient introduction to the Closutton way of life would eventually reap its rewards.

“You have to give credit to Tom Lacey who bought the horse unbroken as a three-year-old, broke him in and then won a point-to-point with him at Larkhill,” explained Graham, assessing Energumene’s formative years.

“He won both divisions of the Larkhill maiden that day, one was with Energumene and the other was with Sebastopol and at the height of his career he was also a good horse.

“Tom rang Harold Kirk and said I’ve had a couple win at Larkhill that might be worth a look at. It was just at the same time we had told Willie and Harold that we would be looking to buy a horse and Harold came back and said he preferred Energumene.

“That is how we got him and you have to credit Tom Lacey as he got the horse going, won a point, but still left plenty to work on – he wasn’t one of these horses gunned to win a point-to-point.

“He was given plenty of time to acclimatise and Willie just brought him along slowly. Again the key word is patience and sometimes when you buy a horse at four and then don’t see him for a year you could worry something was wrong but it wasn’t, we were just giving him time to grow and get bigger and stronger.

“That’s why he was still racing at 12 as not that many buttons were pressed as a younger horse.”

Energumene proved well worth the wait, going on to amass 14 wins from 23 starts under rules and six at the highest level in a career that spanned seven seasons.

He is also fondly remembered for his never say die efforts in defeat, often travelling into Nicky Henderson’s back yard of Ascot to take on some of the best Seven Barrows had to offer, most notably his titanic Clarence House showdown with Shishkin in 2022.

However, as the final chapter approached there was still time for one final victory and one that served the greatest reminder to all involved in the Energumene journey, that this was truly a horse of a lifetime.

Graham added: “When he finished fourth of five at the Dublin Racing Festival this year we did sit down and talk about retirement and then David Casey said to me let’s go to Fairyhouse and let him take his chance there at Easter.

“Our fear was we didn’t want him to end on a low, but he absolutely bolted up and Paul Townend was grinning like a Cheshire cat when he got off him.

“Paul said the feel he gave him was unreal that day and we again sat down and you could have retired him there and then, but we thought let’s have one more day at Punchestown.

“We sort of had our minds made up before the race that it would be his last race but you are scared of saying it in case anything bad happened. I think even if he had won, it was going to be his last race and he has been an unbelievable servant.”