Racing: Pipe and McCoy reign supreme with Seebald

There were record crowds at Cheltenham's Open meeting of 2001 and record breakers, yet, in truth, the record did not change at all.

In Martin Pipe and Tony McCoy, National Hunt racing has found a partnership as dominating as this sport will allow. For three days in the Cotswolds they have further reminded us where their unique blend of sheer hard work and natural ability can lead in the winter game. Seven winners spread across the weekend, including a second successive hat-trick yesterday, provided the dusty statistical bones of a mission supremely completed.

However, you had to be at the foot of a Cleeve Hill partly shrouded by mist yesterday to experience the true nature of their hegemony. For the time being, at least, fellow trainers and jockeys possess the mien of people who recognise they are running for second place. Meanwhile, Pipe scuttles around with an unusually jolly demeanour and McCoy exudes an unbeatable fortitude.

Tarxien, Westender and Seebald were the fellow guests at the top table, the conveyances who added to the heavy trundle through the record books. Pipe now has 116 winners for the season, McCoy 152. The latter's sights are set on his own record for a jumps jockey of 253 in the 1997-98 campaign. Further down the path an even more prestigious point is becoming a tangible destination. McCoy is on course to beat Sir Gordon Richards record for wins by any jockey in a season, 269 in 1947.

Tarxien started the big ball rolling towards the bookmakers yesterday in an opener for which he was priced at a scarcely credible 7-2 considering both the identity of his connections and the fact he had won his previous four starts.

Then it was the turn of Seebald, an ultimately decisive winner of a thoroughly dramatic Independent Newspaper Novices' Chase. The Grade Two event brought together several of the most promising young chasers in these islands, a congregation of snorting athletes as they paraded in the still, cold air yesterday.

Wrens Island looked big enough to have a few Greeks rattling around inside him, Fondmort also possessed the formidable dimensions of the old-fashioned steeplechaser, while Seebald was more dainty, carried lightly round the paddock by legs each sporting a white sock.

Wrens Island led early, but was soon joined by the equally statuesque Sandy Duff. They became substantial bookends as the less ample Armaturk poked his sheepskin noseband through the middle.

Latterly though, this became a match-up between Seebald and Fondmort. A huge struggle was about to be waged as the pair approached the penultimate fence in unison. Then, everything changed.

Fondmort made only a semblance of a mistake, but it was a mistake made at high speed and, on the landing side, he assumed the same position as Bambi managed on his first encounter with ice. That left McCoy and Seebald to come home eight lengths clear.

"I don't know if we were a bit lucky because the other horse looked as if he was going as well as we were, but we stood up and that is the important thing," Pipe said. "I'm sure Seebald's previous experience of Cheltenham helped him and we have the Irish Independent Arkle Trophy [at the Festival] very much in mind for him."

The six-year-old is the property of the Macca & Growler Partnership, aka the former Liverpool colleagues Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler. Seebald was bought for them by the ex-jockey Graham Bradley. "They met Brad at the Grand National meeting [in 1997] when there was a bomb hoax," Robbie Fowler snr said yesterday. "All the jockeys got stuck there without any gear so they took Brad into town to get him some kecks to get him through the night."

It was Mick Fitzgerald, Fondmort's jockey, who had his pants down yesterday. He had earlier collected a six-day suspension for irresponsible riding of a major nature on Surprising in a handicap hurdle, a ban which will absent him from the Hennessy Gold Cup on the first day of next month.

Pipe and McCoy meanwhile march on, and while the latter cannot quite yet walk on water he seems to have mastered levitation. It seemed impossible that he could stay on board when Westender ploughed through the final obstacle of his handicap hurdle, but when McCoy returned from space it was back down on to leather.

"I just got it wrong," the jockey said. "There is a long hill in front of you and you don't want to be slow at the last so I just squeezed him in and he stepped at it a bit. Luckily he picked himself up and kept galloping. The horse helped me because he pulled against me, back into the saddle."

Kingsmark impresses

Kingsmark will miss the Hennessy at Newbury on 1 December despite his impressive return to action when winning the Edward Hanmer Chase at Haydock yesterday.

Martin Todhunter, his trainer, said: "He will be left in the Hennessy until the next declaration stage, but is most unlikely to run as he needs at least five to six weeks between his races."

Todhunter, who has also ruled Cheltenham out of calculations, added: "Kingsmark is much better on a level left-hand track, so we will keep him to Haydock for the time being with the Grand National and Scottish National as his main targets later in the season."

Kingsmark could return to Haydock for next month's Tommy Whittle Chase.