Bryony Frost broke a collarbone in her Monday fall at Southwell, it has been confirmed. The hugely popular jockey, a winner on Frodon at last week’s Cheltenham Festival, will not be able to ride in the Grand National a fortnight on Saturday.
Frost said in a statement on Thursday morning: “I’ve been taken aback by all the support I’ve received since Monday. It makes you aware how many people are running with you when you hold out your hand and see who reaches out to help and pull you up.
“The racing world is an extremely caring one. Although we are all strangers within it, we become a family when we need each other and that’s the beauty of it. Yesterday I went to see an extremely good specialist in Cardiff where my x-ray results have shown that I’ve fractured my clavicle. I suffered a fracture previously which healed well under pressure.
“My body’s response from that fracture makes me positive for when I go back for my assessment in a fortnight’s time and a swift return.”
Orthodox thinking in racing is that a collarbone means a month off, though faster recoveries have been made. Frost had her first ride in the Grand National last year, finishing fifth on Milansbar, the first British-trained horse across the line.
Thursday’s best bets
I enjoy an occasional moan about the British Horseracing Authority, so you’d think I’d approve of a letter, scathing about the regulator, in today’s Racing Post, to which a trainer and two former trainers have put their names. But I turned away in disgust after reading this sentence, Victorian in both form and content:
“It is also rather surprising that after a series of highly questionable appointments, we are still hiring people from the Antipodes, a region where they have successfully placated the ‘angry brigade’ and regulated jumping to near non-existence.”
If you want to argue that someone is not qualified for their job, I’ll listen, so long as you can provide evidence. But if your main or only evidence is that person’s place of origin, you’ve lost my sympathy. It’s a hopeless line of reasoning, that because Jim came from Over There, he will never understand People Like Us.
It’s one thing to be told you don’t do your job well, and we all have to put up with that from time to time. But to be told you’re a bad appointee because of where you came from, well, no one should have to put up with something so baseless or hurtful.
But if you go further and suggest we should never again hire people from a country or group of countries because you don’t like some of the people who have come from there in the past, well then, I’m afraid, you’ve shamed yourself and rendered the rest of your letter irrelevant. It would have been easy enough to advance your cause, but instead you have damaged it.
Having made that necessary point, let’s turn to Thursday’s racing. The nap goes at Sedgefield, where Tetraites Style (3.10) seeks to build on his first run for Keith Dalgleish. He was fresh as paint after a break, seemed to have victory in his grasp when hitting the front but then belted two of the last three and was passed by a well-treated rival. This looks a good opportunity and 13-8 is fair.
Barry Geraghty has a couple of interesting rides at Ludlow. I’dliketheoption (4.10) is surely too big at 14-1, while Musical Slave (4.45) is more obvious at 4-5.
Sedgefield 2.05 Molliana 2.40 Robbing The Prey 3.10 Tetraites Style (nap) 3.45 I’m To Blame 4.20 Whoshotthesheriff 4.55 Strike West 5.25 Djin Conti
Chepstow 2.20 Hold Me Tight 2.50 Fair Kate 3.25 Kingplace 4.00 Sandhurst Lad 4.35 Whin Park 5.05 Subway Surf
5.40 Double Ross
Ludlow 2.30 Falco Blitz 3.00 Night Of Sin 3.35 He’s No Trouble 4.10 I’dliketheoption 4.45 Musical Slave (nb) 5.15 Ballotin
5.50 Floressa
Tips by Chris Cook
