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Ireland Set Fair To Dominate Cheltenham Breeding Ranks

Whichever way you slice it, the green, white and orange of the Irish tricolour ran right through the middle of last year's Cheltenham Festival results. Some 28 races were run during the four biggest days in the jumps racing calendar, and the Irish raiding party won an unprecedented 23 of them.

This haul included the four championship prizes, as Honeysuckle (GB) (Sulamani {Ire}) won the Champion Hurdle, Put The Kettle On (Ire) (Stowaway {GB}) claimed the Champion Chase, Flooring Porter (Ire) (Yeats {Ire}) took the Stayers' Hurdle and Minella Indo (Ire) (Beat Hollow {GB}) was victorious in the Gold Cup.

There was more soul searching than celebrating among the British contingent, as the home team won just five races. Whether matters can be turned around this year remains to be seen, but given the Irish are responsible for 23 of 28 ante-post favourites, the early signs are ominous.

For those immersed in the world of National Hunt breeding, Irish dominance is not a new phenomenon. Results over the last ten years provide a clear illustration, as there have been 276 Cheltenham Festival races run since 2012, and 151 (55 per cent) have been won by a horse bearing the IRE suffix. That is just over four times more than Britain, which has been represented by 37 winners (13 per cent) in the same time frame.

While the action on course generally revolves around Britain versus Ireland, in the breeding stakes French-breds have been a formidable presence with 80 winners (29 per cent) since 2012. The remaining eight winners were supplied by Germany and the US, who delivered four apiece.

A significant factor in these results looking so lop-sided is the sheer weight of numbers, with Irish breeders producing far more jumps horses than their British counterparts.

Data published in the latest Weatherbys Fact Book shows that in 2021, Ireland was home to 4,599 National Hunt mares, which is 31.7 per cent of the country's combined broodmare band and 3.8 times more than Britain, which had just 1,213 dedicated jumps mares, 14.8 per cent of its total broodmare population. In turn, Ireland produced 2,722 jumps-bred foals in 2021, which is 3.9 times more than the 696 youngsters born in Britain who are destined to race over obstacles.

Moreover, not only do Irish breeders have a sizeable broodmare band to call upon, but the balance of National Hunt sire power has long since been based in Ireland.

It was a notable subplot to Frankel (GB) winning the 2021 Flat sires' championship that he was the first British-based title-holder since Mill Reef, who landed the spoils back in 1987.

But you have to go even further back to find the last time the champion National Hunt sire crown left Irish soil, with Spartan General (GB) registering a rare success for Britain during the 1978-79 season. It has been one-way traffic since then, with jumps racing titans like Deep Run (GB), who notched a remarkable 14 consecutive sires' championships, Strong Gale (Ire), Be My Native, Supreme Leader (GB) and Presenting (GB) all coming to the fore for Ireland.

Although Sadler's Wells never claimed a National Hunt sires' championship to go with his record-breaking 14 Flat equivalents, the breed-shaping son of Northern Dancer has exerted a similarly huge influence over the jumping scene. Nowhere has this been more apparent than at the Cheltenham Festival.

No fewer than 23 of Sadler's Wells' sire sons have been responsible for the winners of 84 Cheltenham Festival races in the last ten years, while another 22 winners have the former Coolmore flag-bearer further back in their paternal pedigree. This means that in the last decade alone, the Sadler's Wells line has been responsible for 106 Festival winners, a huge 38.4 per cent of the 276 races run.

No stallion has done more to extend Sadler's Wells' influence over the jumping sphere than King's Theatre (Ire), who claimed five sires' championships and also supplied 12 Festival winners in the last decade, a tally that makes him the most prolific Cheltenham sire of recent times. The late Ballylinch Stud resident's Festival roll of honour includes the likes of Brindisi Breeze (Ire), Champ (Ire), Cue Card (GB), Riverside Theatre (GB) and The New One (Ire).

Among the other successful sons of Sadler's Wells are names such as Milan (GB), source of seven Cheltenham winners since 2012 and the 2019-20 champion, Oscar (Ire), sire of ten Festival scorers, and Glenview Stud's Sholokhov (Ire), whose four successes at the meeting include recent Grade 1 winners Bob Olinger (Ire) and Shishkin (Ire).

Other noteworthy sire sons include High Chaparral (Ire) and Montjeu (Ire), who were responsible for four-time Festival scorer Altior (Ire) and dual Champion Hurdle hero Hurricane Fly (Ire) respectively, while Montjeu's son Authorized (Ire) gave us the mighty Tiger Roll (Ire).

While Sadler's Wells' influence has helped cement Ireland's position as the nucleus of National Hunt breeding, he is also responsible for a British heavyweight in Overbury Stud stalwart Kayf Tara (GB), who has sired seven Festival winners since 2012.

As if all that were not enough, Sadler's Wells' own record includes an important winner from the not too distant past, as Synchronised (Ire) claimed the 2012 Cheltenham Gold Cup for JP and Noreen McManus.

However, despite his ongoing influence, you need to look a little further back to find Sadler's Wells' defining achievement in National Hunt racing, as he is immortalised as the sire of Cheltenham Festival icon Istabraq (Ire), who won three consecutive Champion Hurdles from 1998 to 2000.

Galileo (Ire), heir of the Sadler's Wells empire on the Flat, also has a handful of Festival winners on his vast stud record, and is the grandsire of a further four, with sons Nathaniel (Ire), best known for supplying queen of the Turf Enable (GB), and Soldier Of Fortune (Ire) each responsible for a brace. With so many high-class sons of Galileo on jumps breeders' radars, including the likes of Coolmore's National Hunt recruits Capri (Ire), Kew Gardens (Ire), Mogul (GB) and Order Of St George (Ire), we can expect his name to appear in prominent jumps pedigrees with increasing regularity over the coming years.

There have been 232 individual winners who have struck at the last ten Festivals, and these have been supplied by 124 different stallions. The diversity among this number means that, while Sadler's Wells has been an almost ubiquitous force in recent Festival history, his line is not alone in having had a significant bearing on proceedings.

Another name more commonly associated with high-class Flat performers is Danehill, who has been represented by four successful sire sons with eight winners to their credit, namely Aussie Rules, Dansili (GB) and Duke Of Marmalade (Ire), who all have one winner apiece, as well as Castlehyde Stud's Westerner (GB), who has five.

Danehill's rags-to-riches son Danehill Dancer (Ire) also emerged as a force in the National Hunt world, primarily through the exploits of the much-missed Jeremy, whose five Festival winners include Supreme Novices' Hurdle hero Appreciate It (Ire) and Champion Bumper victor Sir Gerhard (Ire), who are back for more this year. These results have seen Danehill feature in the male line of 15 recent Festival winners.

The last decade has also seen significant success for descendants of other prominent National Hunt influences such as Alleged, Garde Royale (Ire) and Monsun (Ger). Alleged's name has appeared in the male line of 11 winners in the last ten years, with Shantou responsible for five of those and the mighty Flemensfirth having supplied another four, while Astarabad and Sir Harry Lewis also sired one winner apiece.

Garde Royale's success owes plenty to Robin Des Champs (Fr), whose ten Festival winners in the last decade include National Hunt celebrities Quevega (Fr) and Vautour (Fr). Garde Royale has also been represented by Kapgarde (Fr), sire of A Plus Tard (Fr), a past Festival winner and a strong contender for this year's Gold Cup.

As far as furthering their legacies, time may be running out for Alleged, whose breeding sons have either passed away or been retired from active duty, and Garde Royale, for whom Kapgarde is a sole representative between Britain, Ireland and France. Monsun, however, has already left his imprint on 12 Festival winners through six sire sons, and remains well represented among the European stallion ranks.

Other sire lines may have been a more plentiful source of Festival success, but Monsun can lay claim to the highest-rated Cheltenham winner in recent times thanks to Sprinter Sacre (Fr), the son of Network (Ger) who won an Arkle and two runnings of the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

The other sons of Monsun to supply a Festival winner are Arcadio (Ger), Gentlewave (Ire), Maxios (GB), Schiaparelli (Ger) and Shirocco (Ger). There were eight sons of Monsun standing across Britain and Ireland in 2021 – namely Axxos (Ger), Gentlewave, Getaway (Ger), Masterstroke, Maxios, Ocovango (GB), Schiaparelli and Vadamos (Fr) – and between them they covered 940 mares, which gives an indication of the sire line's ammunition for the years ahead.

Given that National Hunt horses have longer career cycles than their Flat counterparts, by the time most jumps stallions reach the peak of their powers plenty have either been pensioned or passed away, as evidenced by Milan being the only serving champion jumps sire at present. With so many high achievers no longer in action, breeders will be looking to Cheltenham to reveal who is capable of filling the void. Once again the Irish ranks look to hold all the aces.

Among those with a strong hand are the likes of Sadler's Wells' son Yeats (Ire), who sired four winners last year and will be represented by leading fancies Conflated (Ire), Flooring Porter (Ire), Mount Ida (Ire) and Party Central (Ire) this time around. Another member of the Sadler's Wells line with a strong team is Grange Stud's Walk In The Park (Ire), sire of past Festival scorers Douvan (Fr) and Min (Fr).

The son of Montjeu could start the week with a bang when Jonbon (Fr), a brother to Douvan who fetched a record £570,000 at the Goffs UK Yorton Sale in November 2020, lines up in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle on Tuesday. Walk In The Park will also be represented by the progressive Ginto (Fr) and Champion Bumper favourite Facile Vega (Ire), who is out of six-time Festival heroine Quevega.

Glenview Stud's Blue Bresil (Fr) could also be set for a good week, with the son of Smadoun (Fr) set to field the likes of Blue Lord (Fr), Constitution Hill (GB), Redemption Day (GB) and Royale Pagaille (Fr).

The French ranks will be typically well represented, not least by the progeny of Doctor Dino (Fr), who stands at a record fee for a jumps sire at €18,000. The Haras du Mesnil resident looks set to supply well-fancied runners such as Dinoblue (Fr), Fil Dor (Fr) and State Man (Fr), while his compatriots No Risk At All (Fr), sire of Allaho (Fr) and Epatante (Fr), and Kapgarde, source of A Plus Tard and Prengarde (Fr), could also make an impact.

There are also a host of younger names for whom a first Festival winner would mark a major milestone in their upwardly mobile careers. These include Arctic Tack Stud's Jet Away (GB), source of Ryanair Mares' Novices' Hurdle second favourite Brandy Love (Ire), Haras de la Tuilerie's Masked Marvel (GB), who is responsible for Champion Hurdle challenger Teahupoo (Fr), and Kilbarry Lodge Stud resident Diamond Boy, sire of Brown Advisory Novices' Chase fancy L'Homme Presse (Fr).

During a busy weekend of sport, Ireland were made to work hard for their 32-15 victory over England in Saturday's Six Nations contest at Twickenham, with the gloss added to the final score only inside the last six minutes. When the Cheltenham roar goes up and the countries renew their rivalry at the Festival this week, all known form suggests that matters will prove much more one-sided.

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Costa Appointed New Trainer at Jebel Ali Stables in Dubai

Australian trainer Michael Costa has been appointed as His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's trainer at Jebel Ali Stables in Dubai. The contract was signed in the emirate on Friday. Costa, who runs Michael Costa Racing, will continue to operate his stable in Australia for the majority of the 2021/2022 season and, after all of his horses and staff have been placed with new trainers and positions, will move to Dubai and take up his new role. The horseman will oversee sourcing a large band of racing talent every year. The best-known horse to race in Sheikh Ahmed's colours is the globetrotting multiple Group 1 winner Addeybb (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}), who has earned Group 1 wins in both hemispheres.

Costa released a statement via Michael Costa Racing's YouTube channel which read in part: “I went over with an objective mindset, but I was absolutely blown away by the facility, the horses and the people. The opportunity that was presented was far bigger than I could have ever anticipated. The facility itself is world class and I can't image there being a better facility and training establishment in the world.

“What the job entails is to take up the training operation and purchasing a large bloodstock band every year, as well as travelling the Carnival horses all around the world to compete at the highest level. After viewing the operation and meeting the lovely team at Jebel Ali, I had some hard conversations with my wife and family on what has been the hardest decision of my life. I've decided to take up the position of the head role for Jebel Ali and for His Highness Sheikh Ahmed.

“I'm extremely grateful for all of our owner support, growing a stable with one of the best strike rates in the country. This could only be done with the support of all of our owners. I'd also like to thank all of my staff who've shared this journey with me.”

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Wadham Looking To Sky For Poignant First Festival Win

“You start to feel like you're waiting for Godot,” says Lucy Wadham, referring to the fictional character who never actually appears in Samuel Beckett's play of the same name.

It has been a long winter and the days can seem to pass agonisingly slowly when you have a horse aiming for a big-race target, but the sand in the Cheltenham Festival hourglass has now nearly all run through. Wadham has only to wait until Tuesday afternoon to unleash the bonny grey mare who has been at the forefront of the trainer's excellent season.

As we meet a week ahead of the start of the Cheltenham Festival, it is not just the thought of her forthcoming runners that are occupying Wadham's mind, however. Step into any trainer's yard at 6.30 in the morning and ordinarily they will be busying themselves with getting first lot out and about, but these are strange times and, as Wadham appears, conversation turns instantly to the appalling situation in Ukraine. She doubtless speaks for many when she says, “It's hard to think about anything else at the moment really.”

But in the bubble of British and Irish National Hunt racing, minds have been focused on Cheltenham for months. For many it is more exciting than Christmas and now here we are: jump racing's Christmas Eve. Early on Tuesday morning, Wadham will be on her way to the Cotswolds with Martello Sky (GB) (Martaline {GB}), who is set to line up for the G1 Close Brothers Mares' Hurdle.

The exuberant 6-year-old has a lightness of action and could be mistaken for a Flat horse amid Wadham's predominantly jump-orientated string, but within her smaller frame is contained an enormous will to win. In just 12 starts since she first stepped onto a racecourse just over two years ago, Martello Sky has come home in front eight times. When she won on debut, her breeder Tim Wood, was there to see it. Tragically, Wood, who had been paralysed in a hunting fall six years earlier, died 18 months ago, leaving his brother Simon and sister Kate Dixon to continue racing his pride and joy with friends Toby Sexton and Mark and Dawn Dewson under the name of The Sky Partnership.

“Tim would have loved all this. Every time she wins, and she does that quite often, we all get rather tearful,” says Wadham, whose eye never leaves her horses as they stroll past en route to the gallops, the diminutive Martello Sky, ridden by Polly Gunn, tucked in behind the strapping seven-time winner Potters Legend (GB) (Midnight Legend {GB}), now 12.

The stable has also been home to Martello Sky's half-sisters Mystic Sky (GB) (Midnight Legend {GB}) and Iconic Sky (GB) (Sixties Icon {GB}), who won eight races between them, as well as their dam, the Cloudings (Ire) mare Kentucky Sky (GB). She was also a winner in Wood's black-and-white silks and finished runner-up in the Listed EBF Mares' Bumper at Sandown.

“We've trained all the girls in the family,” Wadham recalls. “And Martello Sky has just been very straightforward to train really. We always liked her at home and then first time out at Fakenham she looked like she was going to be nowhere, but then suddenly the penny dropped and she overtook the whole field and won going away by a few lengths. That was the beginning and she's now won eight. And she's a dual Cheltenham winner, which is always encouraging going into the Festival.”

She continues, “Her jumping has improved out of all recognition this year. We ran her in the mares' novices' hurdle at the Festival last year and she just wasn't experienced enough. She took a dive over the second and Bryony [Frost, jockey] had to give her a bit of time to recover. She finished very well–it wasn't actually a bad run given that she had nearly fallen at the second hurdle–but her jumping is a lot sharper now.”

Indeed, since that eighth-place finish at Prestbury Park last year, Martello Sky's progress has been eye-catching. She won the Listed hurdle on the all-mares card back at Cheltenham last April before a triumphant reappearance this season at Market Rasen. Her only defeat in that time has come when fourth behind Brewin'upastorm (Ire) at Aintree in November, and Martello Sky has since downed the colours of the equally tough mare Indefatigable (Ire) at Cheltenham and then landed her second Listed success at Sandown in January.

Wadham adds, “She's very athletic and light on her feet, and handles soft ground surprisingly well. She's versatile on ground, which is helpful. When they are small and light like that it really can help from a soundness angle.”

The trainer also credits Bryony Frost with having played an important role in the mare's development even though that for four of Martello Sky's last five starts she has had to be riding elsewhere to fulfil her commitments to her boss Paul Nicholls.

During that time, Frost has endured the contentious court case which saw her fellow jump jockey Robbie Dunne banned for 18 months for bullying and harassing Frost. That episode has not yet been concluded as Dunne has appealed against his ban and the appeal will be heard by the BHA on March 30.

Along with the champion trainer Paul Nicholls, Wadham is one of only a handful trainers regularly using the services of Frost, who in 2019 became the first female jockey to ride a Grade 1 winner at the Cheltenham Festival aboard Frodon (Fr). Frost returns with that old friend in the G3 Ultima Handicap Chase on the opening day of this year's Festival, with Martello Sky being her only other ride on Tuesday.

“Bryony has become a good friend and I think she is a wonderful jockey,” says Wadham, a staunch supporter of the woman who started race-riding in point-to-points, just as she did.

“She has an extraordinary way of improving horses. Last year some of our fillies, like Regarding Ruth, Sorbet, and Martello Sky, they all improved for having her riding them. And that's a real gift. Also the horse always comes first for her. She would never carry on on a horse that couldn't, and she comes to ride them all here and gets to know them. She's been a real asset to the yard.”

That yard, despite housing a much higher number of jumpers than Flat horses, is based firmly in the Flat racing heartland on the edge of Newmarket Heath at Moulton Paddocks. If that name sounds familiar it is because it is more commonly associated through the summer with Charlie Appleby's Godolphin stable, which is right next door. While her neighbours in blue greatly outweigh Wadham's relatively small string numerically, the trainer, always ably assisted by her husband Justin, has very much upheld the good run of that corner of Newmarket over the years.

The Dark Lord (Ire), trained for the Wadhams' great friends Anthony and Victoria Pakenham, became her first black-type winner in a Listed hurdle in 2004 carrying the colours worn by the Marcus Tregoning-trained Sir Percy (GB) to win the Derby two years later. The next major success for the stable came with another mare, United (Ger) (Desert King {Ire}), winner of the G1 Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle at the Punchestown Festival. United also brought Wadham the closest she has come to winning at the Cheltenham Festival when she was second to the mighty Quevega (Fr) in the same race Martello Sky contests on Tuesday.

But the stable is far from one-dimensional. For the Pakenhams, Wadham has also trained the Flat stakes winners Cassique Lady (Ire), Crystal Gal (Ire) and Lady Tiana (GB), with the latter, winner of the G2 Lancashire Oaks, being extra special for her owner/breeders as she is a daughter of Sir Percy.

“I think jumping is really our main love,” says Wadham, whose daughter Mimi is one half of the increasingly prominent sales consignment company WH Bloodstock, with her friend and business partner Violet Hesketh. “We enjoy the Flat but jumping just seems a bit more noble somehow, I don't know why.”

She continues, “I love being here in Newmarket though. I think it keeps us under the radar which I quite like. But the lads all follow the jumping and when we're riding out they will call across and say 'how is she?' Everyone is really interested. Newmarket loves Cheltenham, and you don't feel like you're not part of the team here. There's a lot of banter on the Heath, which is fun.”

The last time Newmarket welcomed a Cheltenham Festival winner home was in 2006, when the James Fanshawe-trained Reveillez (GB) won the Jewson Novices' Chase for JP McManus. Prior to that, Fanshawe had been represented by two Champion Hurdle winners in Hors La Loi (Fr) and Royal Gait (GB), the latter for Sheikh Mohammed, who also owned the 1990 Champion Hurdle winner, Kribensis (GB), trained by Sir Michael Stoute. In the 1970s, Harry Thomson 'Tom' Jones trained the outstanding Tingle Creek from Newmarket, but brilliant though he was, the great two-mile steeplechaser never won at Cheltenham. Go back farther still to the 1930s and you'll find an even greater name from the National Hunt annals, Golden Miller (Ire), the winner of five Cheltenham Gold Cups and the Grand National, who was trained in Newmarket's neighbouring village of Exning by Basil Briscoe.

“Historically loads of good jumpers have been trained here,” Wadham says. “So there's no reason not to train jumpers in Newmarket. The facilities are fantastic for any type of horse. I think really if you can't train a horse in Newmarket you might as well give up.”

Wadham certainly has no reason to do that. With another mare, Miss Heritage (Ire) (Pour Moi {Ire}), having provided the stable with a Grade 2 victory in the Yorkshire Rose Mares' Hurdle at the end of January, she is on course to record her best season since first taking out her licence some 30 years ago, and on the back of her previous personal best in 2020/21. A Grade 1 win at the Festival would cap it all, even if the circumstances would once again have Martello Sky's owners and trainer in tears. The wait is almost over.

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From The Real To The Magical: The Power Of The Thoroughbred

Racing is famously described as living in its own little bubble. (People often say this crossly, with exasperation.) And it is, in many ways, a world of its own. It is so specialised and so absorbing and so difficult to understand for those outside it. It even has its own language – arcane technical terms and ancient slangs which few people beyond Newmarket and Lambourn understand.

Yet racing people are also human people. They do live in the real world. They watch the news. They feel the terrifying clashes of the geopolitical tectonic plates.

A friend rang up this week, a breeder and a writer, and she told me how she had gone out on the Heath and felt such simple gladness to see the Flat horses on Warren Hill after their winter rest. 'But,' she said, 'I bumped into a trainer and we did not speak of the horses. We talked for half an hour about Ukraine. Because it is so heartbreaking and we felt guilty entertaining even the merest hint of pleasure.'

Racing people are human people and this is a very human reaction to a catastrophic situation. How can we, in peaceful Blighty, laugh and smile when Ukrainian children are hiding from bombs in basements and underground stations?

This question cuts hard at the moment, because this is one of the most joyous times of the racing year. The glory of Cheltenham is shimmering on the horizon – those four glittering, heart-lifting days which National Hunt fans wait for like a child waits for Christmas. And then, the moment all of that is over, the promise of the Flat strides onto centre stage. It will be time to think of the Guineas, when a new star will shine on the Rowley Mile, and the whole panoply of the Classic series spreads out in the imagination of those who love Thoroughbreds.

For the people who work with these wonderful athletes, this time of year has other kinds of joy in it. Spring is in the air, and the horses are casting off their wintriness and starting to bloom. They will soon feel the warmth of the sun on their backs and unfurl, in body and mind, like daffodils turning their heads to the light. For the humans who look after them, working in a yard will no longer be a fumble of frozen fingers and a balancing act on icy surfaces. It is the hopeful season, in every sense of the word.

But the world. The pandemic has been bad enough, with its uncertainties and its odd tribalisms and its constraints and its griefs. Now there is a war, with its mournful note of human suffering and its sinister threat of nuclear action. How can anyone take joy in such a superficial thing as a horse race when that is happening?

As I struggle to find an answer to that question, I think of my dad. He started off as a steeplechase jockey, an amateur rider who faced the big birch fences for the love of it, and by the time I came along, in the late sixties, he was starting to train. The 1970s of my childhood were dark days indeed. The spectre of the Cold War hung over everything. Britain was a basket case, humiliatingly bailed out by the IMF, plagued with strikes, disfigured by unemployment. The Troubles were at their horrible height, and it was an ordinary part of life that bombs would go off in the cities and towns, in pubs and barracks. (It seems extraordinary, writing this now; extraordinary that people got used to this. Nobody thought it would ever end, and then, one day, with the Good Friday Agreement, it did.)

And yet there was Dad, riding his horses and singing his songs; dreaming of the Grand National and of the accumulator that would change his life. (It never did.) He was not a callous or a frippery man; he felt things deeply. But he would not let worldly horrors taint his love of his horses, the freedom he felt when he was up on the downs, the delight he took in his racing compadres.

Maybe, I think now, it was the horses that saved him.

Because here is the thing I truly believe about racing: it is different from other sports, because of the horses. Racing is another world because horses are another species. They know nothing of our human complexities. They don't watch the news. They have no politics. They don't get into shouting matches on social media. I think that the people who love them and care for them and cheer them on feel this, on a conscious or subconscious level.

There is something so pure about those racing Thoroughbreds. They are a very special breed, with a high intelligence. They are powerful and athletic and fast. They thrill, but they also inspire – with their courage, their honesty, their willingness. I often think that racing horses have many of the qualities I look for in humans: authenticity, generosity of spirit, grace. Horses, a very wise man once wrote, don't lie.

Because of this, I think they offer tired, fretful humans an escape, into another plane of being. And we all need a rest, sometimes, especially when the sorrows come not in single spies, but in battalions.

I want to answer my friend's question with a ringing yes, like Molly Bloom at the end of Ulysses. I want to say yes, and yes, and yes, and yes: we can feel pleasure, without guilt in it. I want to say that we lovers of the horse should feel pleasure, in these dark days. Because the point of life is that it can hold all the emotions. The anguish and despair are real, and there is no point trying to banish them with a bit of positive thinking and a pint of gin. But they can be balanced by the high emotions of life: that sheer, exuberant delight when a great horse comes storming up the hill at Prestbury Park to the collective roar of seventy thousand voices. That spine-tingling, otherworldly feeling that the racing tribe felt when it saw Frankel, appearing to break the laws of physics, as the commentator yelled, disbelief rising in his voice, 'But at the bushes, Frankel is fifteen lengths clear.'

When America was mired in the Great Depression, a little horse with the heart of a lion came along and gave the benighted citizens something to hope for. Seabiscuit didn't look like much, and he seemed to prefer sleeping to racing, and he didn't come from a grand yard. The snooty bluebloods in the East sneered at what they regarded as little more than a scrawny cow pony, until he came out and silenced them in his famous match race against the huge, gleaming War Admiral. (The amazing thing is that, in his retirement, Seabiscuit did indeed ride out to check on the cows.)

The Little Horse That Could famously sold out the cheap seats; the infield, where people without much money could go to watch the racing, was rammed when he appeared. He seemed to chime a resonant note with all those people who were struggling: he too had been counted down and out, and yet he somehow rose, to defy the doubters. He was probably the first true People's Horse. For a glorious, giddy, breathless moment, ordinary Americans could forget their troubles and dream of something fine.

You could say the same for Secretariat, who came along in the tumultuous, divisive times of the seventies. Soaring inflation and a country bitterly divided over the Vietnam War gave the American public a lot to deal with. Secretariat, fondly known as Big Red, seemed to unite everyone: young and old, rich and poor, left and right.

The horses, with their beauty and their courage, take people away from the sorrowful and the humdrum and the frightening. But it is more than that. There are always the great human stories. At Cheltenham this year, perhaps the story of the meeting is that of the Hamiltons.

When you arrive at Prestbury Park, the infield is not crowded with the ordinary people who came to cheer on Seabiscuit. It is filled with shiny helicopters, as the millionaires and billionaires fly in to watch their expensive stars. In the car park by the stables, fleets of vast, gleaming horse boxes are lined up, like slumbering giants. Many of them come from Ireland, transporting the conquering army of Willie Mullins. He'll have around fifty horses sailing across the Irish Sea. Ann and Ian Hamilton will have one runner, and they'll bring him to the races themselves.

They are farmers, up at dawn to see to the cows and the sheep, living and dying by the weather, devoted to a lifetime of relentless work. They have six racehorses. I read that they almost didn't come to Cheltenham this year because it would be a three-day trip, and they wondered who would look after the livestock while they were away. Anything further away from the vast operations of a Nicholls or a Mullins could hardly be imagined.

And yet there they are, rolling the dice. They've got a beauty in Tommy's Oscar, and he's a proper horse, and they adore him, and he has every right to take his place on the biggest stage of all. You never want to underestimate Ann Hamilton. The 69-year-old might only train six horses, but she's got a 43% strike-rate this season, which the big trainers can only dream about. Tommy's Oscar will almost certainly not take the crown of the majestic Honeysuckle, the reigning queen of racing, but he'll give each-way punters a shout for their money. To me, the very fact that he takes his place in the line-up is a victory. The Hamiltons have already won, because they have proved that you can outrun the odds with belief, and hard work, and a dream.

The other beautiful, hopeful story is that of Paisley Park. There was a time when this grand fella drove all before him. When he was in his pomp, the others might as well not turn up, he was so invincible. Then he had a physical setback and when he returned he was a bit in and out. He remained adored, because he's a lovely horse in his own right, and also because his owner is blind, and comes to the races with a crew of good friends, who tell him what is unfolding out on the track. Andrew Gemmell's smile could illuminate the whole of Cleeve Hill, and I'm not sure I ever saw an owner who got so much joy from his racing.

But the feeling was that dear old Paisley was past his prime, that he might even have fallen out of love with the game. On his last run, he whipped round at the start, so he was facing the wrong way as the field set off. By the time Aidan Coleman got him sorted out, he was twenty lengths behind the rest. Ruby Walsh, who has forgotten more about winning races than most people ever know, said they might as well go back to the parade ring. Watching my old favourite, I couldn't disagree.

Paisley Park, however, comes as close as a horse ever can to having a sense of humour. It was almost as if he heard Ruby and thought he'd have a little joke with him. He kept on galloping and kept on galloping and suddenly, unbelievably, he was in front, back where he belonged. Ruby, with tremendous grace, said, 'It just goes to show you should never give up.'

Paisley Park will line up again in the Stayers' Hurdle, and it's impossible to know what he will do. But rather like Tommy's Oscar, just the fact that he is there is a win, a source of delight, and a reminder that perseverance is one of the greatest of all qualities.

These individual stories might not add up to a hill of beans in the face of the wider world. Yet they are much more than the sum of their constituent parts. They are symbolic, even totemic – their ripples reach wide and deep. In the end, I believe that everything comes down to connection, and the tales of the great horses and their marvellous humans touch something deep in the spirit. Racing, at its best, is a soul thing, and we all need a bit of that.

So I come back to my Molly Bloom yes. I'll be shouting on my equine heroines and heroes next week. I will, as I always do, cry unashamed tears of joy. For a few short days, I will move from the real to the magical. That is the gift that Thoroughbreds give me, and thousands like me, and it is a gift that is beyond price.

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