Moore lifts his hat to Klairon

Racing

Racing

Backing winners is not the single greatest problem at the Punchestown Festival. Achievement is getting home without a small plastic bag full of either fruit or chocolate biscuits.

The Co. Kildare course, like many others in Ireland, attracts peripatetic vendors, mostly women, who sell their wares outside the course. This phalanx of head-scarved elderly figures, who supervise grocery-laden carts last seen carrying England's medieval dead, may look innocuous but, by God, they are difficult to pass.

Their presence humanises Punchestown's main meeting, which began yesterday, and makes it a touch more realistic than, say, Royal Ascot. Whenever I attend the Berkshire meeting, the British equivalent of these women seems to be at a different entrance.

There is a relaxant also in the Irish attitude towards neckwear. A must on Albion's racecourses, where the pressure is to check the Windsor knot every 20 minutes, Ireland appears to be in the throes of a tie blight.

Inextricably linked with Irish racing too is an ecclesiastical theme. Foremost in this area is Father Sean Breen, who has not missed a Cheltenham Festival for 20 years. Fr Breen is the parish priest at Eadestown, close to Punchestown, and just one newspaper per day plops its way on to the mat at his parochial house. It is the Post.

Yesterday, Fr Breen conducted mass and then another session before his followers in a hospitality unit at the course. He had plenty to talk about.

Punchestown, because of its timing, may never be the third major Festival it aspires to be after Cheltenham and Aintree, but it stages racing of quality and variety, with one race yesterday, the Brown Thomas Chase, run over banks. walls and ditches. Much like the Breeders' Cup, the British come here as an afterthought and consequently gain the same results as in North America.

Yesterday, Nick Henderson's Kimanicky was well beaten in his event and the trio of the great under-achiever Coulton, Nakir and Sound Reveille were embarrassed in the main contest of the day, the BMW Handicap Chase.

This, however, did not deflect from a stunning performance by the Queen Mother Champion Chase winner, Klairon Davis, who took his earnings to nearly pounds 270,000 despite the fact that he is only seven years old. In terms of youthful remuneration, he has only Shirley Temple ahead of him.

Arthur Moore, the gelding's trainer, has had some good horses in his time (and whenever they have won races he has employed the camera-friendly tactic of putting his hat between their ears) but he now concedes that Klairon Davis is the best of the lot.

"He's a fantastic horse," he said yesterday. "He's a beautiful, keen, sound horse to train; such a joy and today he was blooming. His coat hasn't looked so good all year."

This was Klairon Davis's 14th win, his seventh chase victory after a bumper and six hurdles, and his best ever jumping performance moved Moore to new levels of rapture. "He's not just the best I've ever trained, he's the best most people have ever trained," he said.

Britain gets another chance this afternoon, when its foremost competitor in the richest race of the day, the Heineken Gold Cup, appears to be the talented mare Sister Stephanie. Her last victory was in the robust arms of Graham McCourt, who has since switched roles to become a trainer and she will appreciate the fact that when McCourt now attends her quarters it is more likely to be with a congratulatory slap than his much-feared whip.

River Lossie and Billygoat Gruff are also components of a formidable field, but their task is no more difficult than that facing Go-Informal and Karshi in the novice hurdle. They have to match strides with Aidan O'Brien's Urubande, who has already been backed for the 1997 Champion Hurdle.

PUNCHESTOWN

4.05 (BMW Chase): 1. KLAIRON DAVIS (F Woods) 5-2 jt-fav; 2. Sound Man 5-2 jt-fav; 3. Opera Hat 6-1. 8 ran. Nakir (4th), Coulton (ur), Sound Reveille (pu), Strong Platinum (fell). 10, 1/2. (A Moore). Tote: pounds 3.50; pounds 1.90, pounds 1.50, pounds 1.20. RF: pounds 4.60. CSF: pounds 9.22. Tricast: pounds 30.61. Trio: pounds 7.80.