Monday Musings: Just Like That, Cooper’s Back

In this game it’s never too late, writes Tony Stafford. As the rain poured down rendering Saturday’s Cheltenham card in jeopardy after an awful drowning Friday, one Irish trainer was firmly keeping his fingers crossed that the much-vaunted drainage system of Prestbury Park would pass muster.

It did, enabling both the Saturday and Sunday cards to proceed, indeed in slightly less testing ground conditions than expected. While overall the meeting was a glittering triumph for the Dan Skelton yard, it will forever live in the memory of Tom Cooper, a veteran journeyman Irish trainer with 37 years in the game as a licence holder.

Suppose you had been training horses for that length of time and had reached double figures only twice, it would obviously have been something of a struggle, as it is for so many trainers. Overall, those 37 campaigns have yielded 121 wins with just the two from 12 individual horses this year. That was Tom Cooper’s story before Saturday, but two days at Cheltenham over the weekend have pushed away a lot of that endless toil.

Tom was undeniably best known for a while as the father of Bryan Cooper, who in his late teens and early 20s was one of the fastest rising stars of the Irish weighing room. He had the privilege, earned by precocious skill, to ride many top horses including Don Cossack, Apple’s Jade and the 15-length 2016 Triumph Hurdle winner, Our Conor.

In that season of 2015/16, he won 94 races in Ireland, his best score, and his mounts earned more than €2.2 million. His career entered a gradual slowdown before he retired from the saddle at the age of 30 in March 2023.

Tom Cooper had sent horses across to England in 30 of those 37 seasons, winning twice from 50 runs in all. Back home his 12 individual runners in 2025/26 had picked up two first prizes earning a total of €25k.

It’s funny how luck can turn on such a knife-edge. As the crowds left Cheltenham last night, Tom Cooper had not only doubled his entire UK career win score but exceeded his Irish earnings for the season to date by notching two wins from his only UK runners of the year so far.

I say so far advisedly, as both Saturday’s successful 4yo filly Celestial Tune and yesterday’s gelding Saint Clovis are guaranteed to be back for more. Saturday’s winner cost €80k at Tattersalls Ireland in the summer of last year, the bid signed for by Bryan Cooper. She was one of the two Tom Cooper winners in Ireland this season, by nine-and-a-half lengths at Listowel in late September.

Saint Clovis was much more modestly priced at €22k, but the style of his win will have had those big-money operators swirling around. Easy Cheltenham Listed bumper winners do not grow on trees, and such are the resources of those owners at the top of the game, it sometimes can appear that their money does. Expect Tom and probably Bryan’s phones to start ringing – no doubt they already have – though owner Andrew Brooks likely has enough pennies to fend off all but the most tempting of suitors.

Cooper junior also signed the ticket for his father’s other winner this season: the filly Amen Kate was successful at 3/1 on for a Galway maiden hurdle last time out. When Celestial Tune followed up the win on home soil with that taking success on Saturday under Sean Bowen, she was paying a healthy compliment to one of Saint Clovis’s yesterday opponents.

He had finished second in a big field behind Gavin Cromwell’s Bud Fox, so it was understandable with the close at hand endorsement, that he should lead the market.

But it fell to another UK champion jockey, this time Harry Cobden, who sent the Cooper four-year-old to the front, never to be headed. The near five-length margin was being stretched all the way to the line. Bud Fox looked to be galloping all over the winner turning for home, but he ran out of puff up the hill and had to be content with third. Maybe something is not quite right with the Cromwell horses just now, their score of 1 from 51 in the past fortnight – and three from 107 in the last 30 days – miles down on longer-term strike rates.

Saint Clovis is regally bred by jumping standards. His sire Clovis De Berlais was a high-class performer in France and sired Friday’s last-race winner French Emperor. That five-year-old put in a massive performance under top-weight for Somerset trainer Nicky Martin and the Bradley Partnership.

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When people take a view on a purchase at the sales aiming at resubmitting their buy at a future auction, there is often a salutary lesson to be learned. But Sam Haggas, son of William and Maureen, has inherited some very positive genes from his parents (not to mention grandfather Lester Piggott) as his recent exploits in the New Zealand sales ring bear out.

Last January he joined with two pals, Adam Potts of BBA Ireland and Barry Donoghue’s BMD Bloodstock, to buy a colt by the dual hemisphere sire Hello Youmzain. It was before the stallion became champion New Zealand first season sire, and he also had an excellent year with his progeny in Europe.

The trio paid NZ $90k and after a very fast 200-metre breeze at the Ready To Run sale, received an eye-watering NZ $700k.  He was bought to race in Hong Kong.

You’ve probably noticed that there hasn’t been any flat racing for a few days but that hasn’t stopped Karl Burke or George Scott from adding to their already impressive 2025 records.

Burke supplied the favourite and winner, the seven-year-old gelding Royal Champion, to collect the £480,000 first prize for the £1 million Bahrain International Trophy on Friday over ten furlongs, ridden by James Doyle. Joseph O’Brien’s Galen (Dylan Browne McMonagle) and Charlie Appleby’s Military Order (William Buick) followed him home, also for some chunky place money.

Scott clocked up a best 43 wins in the UK but expanded his overseas challenges to such an extent that he won eight notable prizes, the most prestigious being the Prix du Cadran with Caballo de Mar at Longchamp and last weekend’s Group 1 in Munich, the Grosser Allianz Preis von Bayern, with Bay City Roller.

The latter, a three-year-old, had been sent across to Longchamp for three important races this summer/autumn but had to be content with place money each time. That clearly was a disappointment after his unbeaten sequence in a trio of juvenile starts, but the seven-length victory in Munich has brought its reward with a stallion job next year.

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Finally, I am most disappointed that I cannot fulfil a long-planned visit to Plumpton today. The course’s owner, Peter Savill, is dedicating the meeting to his late daughter Charlotte who died at the tragically young age of 22 having suffered uncomplainingly with fibrolamellar liver cancer.

Peter explains that FLC is one of many lesser known but highly aggressive cancers mainly affecting young people that get little attention from major pharma companies. It leaves families and generous sponsors to provide support.

The day is aimed to bring attention to the disease and even if, like me, you could not manage to get to Plumpton for its early start today, you can call the team at Plumpton on 01273 890383 to donate.

- TS

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