“If you’d told me this time last year that I wouldn’t be at Cheltenham, I’d have laughed at you,” Gordon Elliott said after winning the Irish Gold Cup. “And if you’d asked me in September if I’d have the team I have now, I’d have laughed at you as well. That’s a testament to everyone who has backed me.”
On an afternoon that reflected the troughs and returning peaks of the past 12 months, Elliott had just seen Conflated, an 18-1 outsider, soothe the pain of three beaten Grade One favourites earlier in the afternoon with a six-and-a-half-length defeat of Minella Indo, last year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, in the feature race.
