Racing: Valiramix the tonic for Pipe's Magnus woes

Money, we have learned, can buy success in racing, though, another lesson taught yet again in Berkshire yesterday, is that it is almost never enough to retrieve the overall investment.

David Johnson and Paul Barber may not be from the same social circle but they have enjoyed great glories in the National Hunt game. Yesterday they were joined yet again on a winter's day by the sight of their bundles going up in flames.

Magnus, who was bought by Martin Pipe for Johnson for £340,000 at Goffs' France mixed sale at Saint-Cloud last month, making him the most expensive jumping horse ever bought at auction, seemed to have little notion of the debt owed. He finished last in the Relkeel Hurdle.

Barber's Garruth, trained by Pipe's Somerset rival Paul Nicholls, can be considered a relative snip at 175,000gns, but he repaid a similar amount in his novice chase, which is nil. He too was last. It was an afternoon when logic, as well as currency, seemed to be tumbling out of the window.

Magnus's defeat was the most shocking. The five-year-old had immediately returned part of his purchase price when successful at Auteuil last month and was, yesterday morning, a short price for the Cheltenham Festival. "If Magnus remains sound," Johnson had provoked the fates, "I'll have four or five seasons with him."

He looked noble enough, straight necked and keen of eye. At a walk, he was classily unhurried. Two islands of white between his eyes and on his snout were connected by a slim blaze.

For the first part of the Relkeel, however, Magnus was in danger of catching a chill. He was clamped at the back of a slow-moving field by Tony McCoy, probably wondering why he went faster up to the gallops at Nicolashayne than he did on the racecourse proper. The lethargic tempo infected the quality of his jumping, though, by the time they reached the top bend, the gelding was vaulting canyons.

At the entrance to the straight, victory seemed less strenuous than a formality. Then the engine dropped out. Magnus struggled, forced over the final obstacles by McCoy, on into fifth, one place out of repaying £676 of his purchase fee. A trickle from his nose told the story.

"He bled," Pipe said immediately. "We've got a problem to sort out. It's back to the drawing board. That's one small step for Magnus, one big step for MCP to sort him out."

The line seemed almost scripted, as if the trainer had been anticipating disaster, yet this was a horse which had performed at the highest level in France without any record of breaking blood vessels. In addition, Pipe and Johnson actually managed to smile their way through the mild interrogation. They know a lot more than we do. But then they have for many years.

Garruth had won at Plumpton on his chasing debut, but yesterday he would have struggled to make an impact at Trumpton. The seven-year-old was a strangely unfamiliar horse, emanating signs of weakness from a long way out before caving in. A match bet tomorrow with Magnus would be interesting.

Pipe did at least receive ointment to his wounds when the Bula Hurdle, like the Relkeel carried over from Saturday's abandoned card at Cheltenham, fell easily to Valiramix.

The grey looked as though he could have done with a good shear in the preliminaries. There was plenty of material to be snipped from his formidable physique. This, however, was not the hair of a dog.

Valiramix too was settled at the back by McCoy, but he jumped fluently from the outset. Eventually, and without any semblance of effort, he pulled himself to the front. Before the line, the five-year-old was afforded the touching gesture of a tweak of his ears by McCoy. Not many of his get a tickle. "A proper horse," the champion jockey reported afterwards.

Pipe emphasised that his beast would have no chance against Istabraq, but thought him useful all the same. "He was very impressive," the trainer said. "He should come on for that as well so it's very pleasing. He's a chaser [in the making]. A nice, big, strong horse."

Valiramix is now a rather nasty 5-1 with Ladbrokes for the Champion Hurdle, though 7-1 is available with Coral. He won easily, but another lesson has always been to avoid reading too much into form from lightly populated races.

Hors La Loi III, who was second to Istabraq in last year's Champion Hurdle, occupied third yesterday but he is becoming a warped yardstick. The gelding is beginning to exasperate James Fanshawe, his trainer, just as much as punters.

Yet, via a line from The French Furze, yesterday's runner-up, Valiramix comes out a much better horse than his stablemate Westender. He also appears superior, on a line through the same horse, to Landing Light. But the Festival lesson of yesterday seems to be to follow through the form from the Champion Hurdle replacement at Sandown in April. Valiramix was third behind Landing Light that day and, at 10-1 with Coral, Nicky Henderson's runner looks a good each-way prospect for the early Festival portfolio.