t Cheltenham on Friday, Al Boum Photo could become the fifth name to join one of the sport’s most exclusive lists by winning a third Gold Cup, yet his fame scarcely seems to extend beyond his own stable door. It is quite the puzzle as this most bizarre of Cheltenham Festivals draws towards its climax. Indeed, he is not even certain to start favourite. A Plus Tard, the horse that would make Rachael Blackmore the first female rider to win the Gold Cup, moved alongside Al Boum Photo in the betting on Thursday afternoon as Blackmore completed a double on Allaho and Telmesomethinggirl. A few hours later, A Plus Tard was a narrow favourite with most bookmakers at around 3-1. Even if Al Boum Photo wins on Friday, this Festival seems likely to be remembered first as the one that unfolded in front of empty grandstands, and then as the meeting where Blackmore dominated the week. It seems to be the story of Al Boum Photo’s career. There is always a better story that pushes him down the list. Blackmore seized control of the race to be the meeting’s top jockey here on Thursday, adding another double to her two winners on Wednesday and Honeysuckle’s memorable success in the Champion Hurdle on Tuesday. A dominant front-running display on Allaho, the favourite, in the Grade One Ryanair Chase, was followed by a well-judged ride on Telmesomethinggirl in the Mares’ Novice Hurdle, at combined odds of 23-1. She was also on the turf in the final race of the day, suffering a fall from Plan Of Attack at the third-last in the Kim Muir Fulke Walwyn Handicap Chase when still travelling well, the fourth time this week she had parted company with her mount. Blackmore is now around 1-6 to become the first female rider to secure the award for the Festival’s top jockey, and victory on A Plus Tard in the Gold Cup on Friday would surely put a seal on it. She is, and always has been, famously reluctant to see her job as anything other than just “jockey”, and a sport that so many outsiders still see as hidebound with prejudice has long since accepted that male and female compete on equal terms, and that’s just how it is. But inevitably it will be front-page news if Blackmore wins the Gold Cup, and project a hugely positive image of a sport to the general public, less than a month after the scandal over Gordon Elliott’s pose on a dead horse on his gallops did the exact opposite. The wave of public money that started heading in A Plus Tard’s direction on Thursday afternoon also reflects the exceptional form of Henry de Bromhead’s string this week. If either of his runners in Friday’s race – Minella Indo is the other – comes home in front, he will be the first trainer to win the Champion Hurdle, the Champion Chase and the Gold Cup, the three most prestigious races at the meeting, in the same week. But in the end, on the second-biggest betting afternoon of the year after the Grand National, everyone wants to be with A Plus Tard and shouting “Come on, Rachael” as she sets off up the hill. After Tony, Barry and Ruby, she is the latest big-race rider at Cheltenham who is on first-name terms with the punters, and she has done it in just three days. Success for Bryony Frost on her beloved Frodon would send a ripple of positive PR for the sport through the media too, while Native River, who returned magnificently to something like his Gold Cup-winning form of three years ago in his latest start, would be a hugely popular winner too as Colin Tizzard prepares to head into retirement. Al Boum Photo, meanwhile, retreats into the background. It takes less than 10 seconds to rattle off the names of all the horses that have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup three times since it was first run as a jumps race in 1924: Best Mate, Arkle, Cottage Rake and Golden Miller. Legends all, hugely celebrated in their time on the track and remembered still via statues, books, racecourse bars and, in Cottage Rake’s case, in song. Al Boum Photo is one race away from joining that exclusive list, and yet his public profile remains horizontal, and attention, understandably, elsewhere. He won his second Gold Cup – and became only the third horse since 1971 to double up – amid an unfolding pandemic. Maybe it is his misfortune – not, of course, that he cares – to be the best steeplechaser of an era that most of us cannot wait to forget.