Blackmore and Captain Guinness serve up surprise Champion Chase win / Photo: Ben Stansall - AFP
Blackmore and Captain Guinness serve up surprise Champion Chase win
Rachael Blackmore on board Captain Guinness capitalised on red hot favourite El Fabiolo failing to finish to land the Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham on Wednesday.
The two-mile chase, feature of the second day of the National Hunt festival, looked nailed on to give Willie Mullins his 100th Festival winner with El Fabiolo.
The master Irish trainer's runner was sent off as the shortest priced favourite since Flyingbolt won this race back in 1966.
His cramped odds were in part due to the morning defection of his principal rival, Jonbon.
Nicky Henderson's runner, second to El Fabiolo in last year's Arkle Chase at the festival, was withdrawn, along with Shishkin in the Gold Cup and like Champion Hurdle favourite Constitution Hill on Tuesday, with the stable under a cloud.
On paper that left El Fabiolo only having to turn up to win -- but that was counting without the most crucial aspect of the sport -- jumping.
Under Paul Townend El Fabiolo made a minor mistake early on then a massive one at the fence leaving the stands.
That knocked the stuffing out of him with Townend pulling him up and his legion of backers counting their losses.
With El Fabiolo out of the picture it left the stage to the brilliance of Blackmore, a Gold Cup winning jockey and already off the mark this week, to plot her path to victory on last year's runner-up.
Frontrunner Edwardstone fell when in the lead after the turn for home leaving Captain Guinness to hold off El Fabiolo's stablemate Gentleman De Mee for an unexpected but nonetheless welcome win.
"Rachel's such an incredible rider," said winning trainer Henry De Bromhead, who was adding to his previous Champion Chase wins with Sizing Europe, Special Tiara and Put The Kettle On.
Realistically de Bromhead was not expecting to be in the winner's enclosure -- even though the winner finished second in the race last year -- given El Fabiolo's form as the horse to beat.
"We were hoping he'd just run well," said the Irish trainer.
"I've always said he deserves a Grade 1, and anything can happen -- it's a horse race."
With three winners on Tuesday including State Man in the Champion Hurdle, and two more earlier Wednesday Mullins was one win away from becoming the first trainer to reach a century of winners at jump racing's annual Olympics.
Before El Fabiolo the Mullins machine marched on and the 67-year-old produced a notable achievement even by his high standards when training the first five home led by hotpot Ballyburn in the opening Grade 1 novice hurdle.
L.Paterson--EWJ
Featured