Going - Soft.
Jackpot Pool - £70,422.54 Not Won. Carried forward on Friday 15th March. Placepot Pool - £1,469,597.80 Dividend - £87.70 Winning Units - 12219.05. Quadpot Pool - £81,456.88 Dividend - £11.70 Winning Units - 5116.59.
Grey Dawning sees off Ginny’s Destiny for Turners prize
He was destined to be a chaser from the start and you just want it to happen so bad, so to win a Grade One novice here is great. He’s still got a huge future to look forward to, hopefully. We won a Grade One novice chase (at Aintree) with Protektorat, but I just feel like this horse is at least as good and potentially could be better, and that is not taking anything away from the ones we’ve had before. But time moves forward and he’s very important. Some people questioned coming for the race, but they can’t now! I just felt the race he ran here against Ginny’s Destiny in December was a very good race and it’s been proven so because they’ve been first and second today. Rule Britannia!
Monmiral records famous success for co-owner Ferguson
A couple have run ordinary the last couple of days, but it’s tough here and they basically weren’t good enough on the day. I thought Ginny’s Destiny would win today and he ran a blinder, and this horse has loads of ability. We’ve been trying to make a chaser out of him, he didn’t like it and I just thought I’d qualify for him for this race at Chepstow a couple of weeks ago and he actually needed the run that day. I thought he’d run OK today, I didn’t necessarily expect him to win. I told Harry to give him plenty of space as he’s a bit timid and doesn’t like to be boxed in and he gave him a beautiful ride. He’s had loads of problems and didn’t want to jump fences. Today worked out really well. Whether the blinkers made a difference or not I don’t know, but he’s obviously come back to himself a little bit.
Protektorat takes flight for Skeltons in Ryanair
We’ve been trying the Gold Cup trip because we’ve been trying to make it happen, it’s the race the owners would most like to win. We dropped him in and he finished third and we rode him more aggressively and he finished fifth. He wasn’t hitting the Gold Cup standard this year, so we’ve come for this and I thought Harry gave him a supreme ride. When Envoi Allen came upsides us I thought he’s danced this dance a lot of times and maybe we’re booked for second, but then going to the last I thought we’d found a bit more, maybe that’s that stamina that we’ve been filling him with for the last few years. It’s a massive family thing and the work that the staff put in is phenomenal. I don’t know what the magic dust was this week. What’s going on here is what we all try to do, it just very rarely happens. The Ryanair Chase is one of the biggies. Grey Dawning is a Grade One novice with a lot to look forward to and with the handicappers you’ve got to place them well, but this is one of the grails isn’t it?. Two Grade Ones at Cheltenham on one day, it doesn’t happen.
Teahupoo strikes Stayers’ gold for Elliott
He’s best fresh so we said we’d come straight here. Listen, it’s great to get a winner. They’ve been running well, just hitting the crossbar, they’ve had no excuses but to win the Stayers’ Hurdle is unbelievable and I’m delighted for the whole team. It’s difficult to tell myself to stay patient when you don’t have a winner, it’s been a long couple of days but they’ve bene running well. We’ve got one now. This was always going to be our best day, this was one of our biggest guns.
