This article titled “David Pipe wants World Hurdle domination at Cheltenham Festival” was written by Chris Cook at Nicholashayne, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 8th March 2011 20.44 UTCDavid Pipe’s best horse is also his most professional. Grands Crus, who is widely fancied to end the long unbeaten run of Big Buck’s at next week’s Cheltenham Festival, is so placid and unthreatening when brought out to pose before the visiting media that those present gather round to make a fuss over him, as if he were a labrador in front of a fire.
None of Pipe’s other Festival contenders on parade on Tuesday invited that kind of treatment, carrying themselves in the edgy way common to most racehorses, promising a kick to the head for those who come too close. Dynaste in particular appeared ready to bolt across the yard at any sudden movement, but Grands Crus was half asleep.
“What you see now is what he’s like in his box and when he’s going to the gallops,” Pipe said, “but on the gallops and in the race he’s completely different. It’s like he has tunnel vision.”
When allowed to stretch out at full pace, Grands Crus asserts himself to the point of becoming hard to control. He still needs heavy restraint from Tom Scudamore through the early stages of his races if he is not to burn through his energy prematurely.
“Tom knows him, he knows what he’s like, so I can’t see it being an excuse,” Pipe said. “It wasn’t the plan to take it up quite so early last time [when he won the Cleeve Hurdle by 10 lengths] but he’s pulled his way to the front. Still, he doesn’t stop in front. When we first started racing him, we made all with him and he wasn’t finishing his races, it was the wrong thing to do. So we changed everything round and he started to finish his races. He grew in confidence and showed what we thought he was before we ran him.”
Pipe says he “knew” as long ago as March last year that the horse would win at Cheltenham’s November meeting, though he is happy to admit being surprised at how far up the ranks he has since progressed.
“Every horse is beatable,” is his response when asked about Big Buck’s, an 11-8 shot to win the World Hurdle for the third year in a row. “We’ve got to improve a few more pounds but we’re young enough that we can. If the worst comes to the worst, he’ll be a cracking chaser for next season.”
Pipe had two winners at last year’s Festival and came within a head and half a length of making it four but the level of expectation at Pond House is a long way short of what it was in the headiest days of his father’s reign. The number of horses in training is holding steady at around 90, Pipe reports, but it is a sign of how things have changed that David Johnson now owns only seven of them. A framed collage on the wall reminds us that Johnson once had seven Pipe-trained winners at Cheltenham over a single weekend.
Johnson’s Great Endeavour, one of last year’s winners, figures among the four horses listed by the trainer as his best chances next week, apart from Grands Crus. Another grey, he is thought likely to appreciate the step up to three miles in a handicap on Tuesday and Pipe hopes he can be a Gold Cup contender by this time next year.
Junior is being aimed at the Kim Muir, while Chartreux, a future chaser, is fancied for the Pertemps. Pipe also likes the chance of Notus De La Tour in the County Hurdle.
It would not, however, be completely unprecedented for Pipe to win something with a handicapper he omitted to mention in front of the press. Shoegazer was not on parade yesterday but still appears to have his supporters for the hurdle race named after Pipe Sr next Thursday.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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