The tiny Letcombe Bassett yard of Mark and Sara Bradstock, made famous by Coneygree’s Gold Cup success, is back in the big time thanks to Step Back, who galloped his rivals into the ground in the Bet365 Gold Cup here. The lightly raced chaser was surely unknown to all but the most ardent followers of racing until this contest, problems having combined to shroud his light, but he is now a serious Grand National prospect for next year.
“We’ve got no bloody horses, that’s the trouble,” said Sara Bradstock, grinning a little ruefully in the winner’s enclosure. “We prove again and again that we can do it if you give us the horses.”
Step Back was bought at an auction in Cheltenham two years ago for £45,000, about a tenth of what one can expect to pay for the very best chasing prospects. It looks like good business now but evidently there have since been times when the money seemed lost for good.
“He’s had terrible problems with his muscle enzymes,” Bradstock said. “He’s taxed us and the vets and the farriers and everybody. But he’s a star. I knew he was in really, really good nick. He’s the most lovely horse and he just jumps and gallops forever.”
Victory raised happy memories of Bradstock’s father, the much-missed John Oaksey who was for so long a source of gravitas for Channel 4 Racing and had previously been an amateur jockey of some skill. He won the second running of this race, 60 years ago, on Taxidermist, and sometimes referred to it as his favourite race of each year.
Salisbury
2.00 Cotubanama 2.30 Zaria 3.05 Westbrook Bertie (nb) 3.40 Almoghared 4.15 Mistress Quickly 4.45 Hunni 5.20 Harlequin Striker
Wetherby
2.10 Staplegrove 2.40 Sailing Home 3.15 Elnadim Star (nap) 3.50 Sauchiehall Street 4.25 Club Wexford 4.55 Plansina 5.30 Dapper Man 6.00 Yorkshire Rover
Bradstock noted that his preference was for a strong finisher roaring up the famous hill to snatch victory on the line. But he would surely have been just as happy to see his daughter’s Step Back make all the running, pinging his fences and pounding remorselessly homeward as his 19 rivals gave up the unequal struggle.
“It was a piece of cake,” said the winning jockey, Jamie Moore. Blaklion, sent off favourite two weeks after being brought down at the first in the National, was never sighted with a chance and was eventually pulled up. Rock The Kasbah and Present Man, the winner’s closest pursuers from an early stage, stuck on to be placed.
Bradstock’s hope is that the handicapper does not over-react and will raise her horse by just enough to squeak into next year’s National field. With even greater optimism, she spoke of one more tilt at the Cheltenham Gold Cup with Coneygree, who is reportedly healthy again after a season when he was pulled up in both starts.
“His engine is probably a little bit big for his chassis,” she said of Coneygree. Still, for a stable that has had five winners in the whole season, it is really something to have candidates for both of next season’s biggest races and we are all allowed to dream.
On the final day of Ireland’s season, Nina Carberry followed her sister-in-law, Katie Walsh, out of the weighing room and into retirement after winning on Josie’s Orders at Punchestown. The pair of pioneering female jump jockeys count as a major loss to the sport but they have smoothed the way for others to follow and Carberry expressed the hope that female success over fences is going to become a theme in future years.
“It’s not that I have anything against the boys or anything but the girls are well able to put it up to the lads,” she said, adding, in a reference that may one day prove significant: “My daughter Rosie was here today and she’s full of flight and its wonderful to have her.”
