The Racing Post held their World Cup of Racing whilst the footballing World Cup was going on, with the aim of establishing who were the top performers of the horseracing world within the past four years. While it was Italy who last won the last World Cup in 2006, and Spain this year, it was going to be interesting to see who the horseracing enthusiasts deemed most worthy of the accolade of winning the eight different groupings: Best Jump Trainer; Best Racecourse, Best Broadcaster, Best Flat Trainer, Best Flat Jockey, Best Flat Horse, Best Jump Jockey and Best Jump Horse.
The tournament was put to the votes of the fans, and the eight winners of randomly-drawn ties went through to the quarter finals, the winners of those to the semi-finals and then on to the final. The competition held no prizes for voters or winners, but each of the final eight winners were very worthy of their win.
There was no real competition for the title of best flat horse and best jump horse with each of the winners, Sea the Stars and Kauto Star easily landing into their groups. Some of the other groups however did hold some controversy, one of them being the quarter-final exit of Aidan O’Brien in the vote for the best flat trainer.
At the same stage Newmarket was lost from the poll in the search for the best racecourse. The ultimate winner of the flat trainer group was Sir Michael Stoute, who is looking like having a good chance in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot with Harbinger, while fans of the Grand National will be disappointed that it was Cheltenham that won the best racecourse as opposed to Aintree.
Matt Chapman beat John Francome in the final round of the voting for the Best Broadcaster, with 54% of the vote, which will have come as a surprise to some of his critics. His toughest challenger was Alastair Down in the semi-final stage, where the two changed lead position a number of times in a nail-biting finish to the round which saw Chapman finally achieve 51% of the vote, getting him through to the final.
Paul Nicholls won the best jump trainer category and Mick Kinane won the best flat jockey category. The toughest competition of the tournament was between Tony McCoy and Ruby Walsh for the winner of the best jump jockey. As always with those two, they were miles ahead of their opponents in the stakes, but it was a slim line between the two, with each of them taking the lead several times during the final hours of voting.
In the end, just as the deadline struck, it was McCoy who won over his old rival, by just 2% – and many would say a well deserved win, he is after all a fifteen times champion and this year ended his Grand National jinx as he claimed victory at his fifteenth attempt on 10-1 joint favourite Don’t Push It. There are the Ruby fans who would claim that it was only because he wasn’t in the race that McCoy scooped it
