Sound Man sends Irish loud signal

COMMENTARY: RACING: Success in Ascot's big chase encourages dreams of dominating Cheltenham's two-mile championship

T here will be smiling faces in Cheltenham this week, turning round bits of card in hotel windows to see the word vacancies.

The events of the last four days have ensured the guest houses of Gloucestershire will soon have bouncing telephones, with the majority of voices at the other end possessing the same familiar lilt.

The task force for Ireland's annual pilgrimage to the Festival next spring will already be mobilising following the successes of Klairon Davis at Tipperary on Thursday and Sound Man who captured Saturday's First National Bank Gold Cup at Ascot.

These were the horses that composed the forecast at Prestbury Park in the Arkle Chase in March and it may well be that they provide a similar scenario in this season's Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Klairon Davis has already been committed to the two-mile chasing championship but Sound Man showed on Saturday that he has a broader range. Edward O'Grady, the latter's trainer, is still considering a return over the Irish Sea for the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, although Richard Dunwoody, who rode the gelding on Saturday, believes the minimum distance is the horse's best trip. It was difficult for him, or anyone else, to tell after Ascot's race. After the departure of Morceli, Sound Man was eased down so considerably that by the time he crossed the terrain at the winning post there were probably worms underneath travelling more quickly.

Warren Marston, Morceli's jockey, later said that the striking grey was going well at the time of his fall and would almost certainly have played a decisive hand in the finish (the best-known statement of Mandy Rice- Davies springs to mind here). Morceli's first fall over obstacles does not appear to have brought with it lasting damage. "He seems in A1 condition," Sue Johnson, wife of the gelding's trainer, Howard, said yesterday. "It was quite a nasty fall but he has come back fine. He just has a slight graze."

Saturday was a day when the key to O'Grady's drinks' cabinet would have been employed. At Navan he won the bumper with Telescope and the bumper prize with Gimme Five, who took the IRpounds 15,000 Troytown Chase. Gimme Five is owned by J P McManus, who also has a share in Sound Man, along with several other sound businessmen. The gelding's co-owners include David Lloyd, Britain's Davis Cup captain, who recently sold his chain of leisure centres to earn himself pounds 20m, John Magnier, Vincent O'Brien's son-in-law, and McManus himself, whose income became so swollen that he had to move to Switzerland to preserve his funds.

Any one of them could spoil the market this afternoon for the Bradford Selling Handicap Hurdle at Catterick, where O'Grady allows one of the relative sluggards from his yard a run out. Catwalker has yet to win after 11 starts over obstacles, but then he has never performed in selling company before (Ireland has no such level of competition).

Today's cards, and others for some while, will have to go ahead without the participation of Adrian Maguire. The Irishman, who cracked a bone just above his ankle in a fall at Ascot on Friday, may be out for up to a month, and out of the jockeys' championship, too, according to the bookmakers. With Coral he is out to 12-1 (from 4-1) to improve on his runner-up position of the last two seasons. Dunwoody, Maguire's conqueror for the last two years, is almost equally unfancied at 10-1 as he has issued a statement that he intends to ride in Ireland much more this campaign. This clears the decks for a new order, and according to the odds the new name on the scroll will be either David Bridgwater (4-6) or Tony McCoy (13-8).

The prices about Young Hustler dropped over the weekend as well following the evidence he can cope with Aintree's fences. Nigel Twiston-Davies's horse is now 14-1 (from 25-1) for next year's Grand National and 8-1 (from 12-1) for Saturday's Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury.

A bulletin from Carl Llewellyn (who once contemplated riding in the National with a broken leg) yesterday suggested he would be back from an elbow injury to ride Young Hustler. But as the Welshman would give himself a 50-50 chance after decapitation it may be safe to assume that Chris Maude will keep the ride.