Tag Archive for: Sara Bradstock

Monday Musings: A Grey Area

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A week ago, when talking to Nicky Richards in the morning when he had sent three horses to Ayr – he won in the afternoon with 4/1 on shot Upon Tweed - we had a quick chat about one of his other runners, writes Tony Stafford. Red Cadillac had narrowly won his previous race at Carlisle and as a result he was carrying 11st13lb in this £4k to the winner handicap hurdle.

“I expect our horse will run well, that is unless Gordon Elliott’s boys are coming with their betting boots on”. Like three other runners on the day, King Gris was to be ridden by Sean Bowen. Running off 73, therefore in receipt of 25lb from Nicky’s horse, King Gris, owned by the Sette A Milano Syndicate, was 5lb wrong, as his official mark was a bargain-basement 68!

By the time of the race at 2.45 p.m., as the Editor and I were just about on the dessert course at the Horserace Writers and Photographers Association lunch in London, Elliott and the champion jockey already had two wins on the board. At the off, King Gris, 5/2 against at one point in the morning, was 11/4 on and won comfortably doing only what was needed by Bowen to land the odds.

The official margin, which could clearly have been extended if Bowen (and no doubt Elliott) had wished, was two lengths. After that in the seven-horse affair over the minimum trip it was 7 lengths, 6½, 9½, 3¾ and half a length. Strung out like washing on the line as the pre-race market suggested they would be.

Probably struggling to keep a straight face afterwards speaking to Racing TV, Gordon Elliott said, “It was nip and tuck going to the last, but King Gris won which is the most important thing, and he has a good attitude. That was a low-grade race but hopefully he'll be able to win a couple more.” No doubt! Richards’ guess is that he could be a 120 horse.

Red Cadillac, of course, was second and having done his best against what clearly were virtually impossible odds, his connections are going to have to pay a price. As Richards said yesterday, “No doubt after this he’ll go up in Tuesday’s new ratings and from there it will be harder for us to find another race with him.”

Reflecting yesterday morning in response to my reminding him of the event, he said, “There’s been hell on about it. I’ve had calls about it, but I think the BHA are to blame for allowing such a situation to arise.

“This was a Class 5, 0-100 race. During Covid, the rules were changed to prevent Irish stables having runners in races over here at Class 5. That has since been rescinded, but why I’ve no idea. We struggle enough to beat their horses in the top races – look at what Il Etait Temps did to Jonbon and co at Sandown. If we must contend with apparent set-ups like King Gris, what chance do we have?”

So, how did King Gris, a former Irish pointer with a very close third as the best of three runs on his card for owner-trainer Denis Paul Murphy, manage to arrive at a jumps rating of 68, equating to a flat mark in the early/mid 20s?

A short time after that promising pointing third I referred to, King Gris was gelded and it was only a few weeks later that he turned out in a hurdle race at Bangor under the auspices of Merseyside trainer Patrick Morris. He was a 25/1 shot, reflecting that point-to-point effort just a couple of months earlier but finished ninth of ten and was beaten a mammoth 90 lengths.

Next came Morris’s local track Aintree, where King Gris was fifth of six, beaten 63 lengths at 150/1. The final qualifying effort was at Cartmel. There, starting 250/1, and ridden as at Aintree by Charlie Todd, he was last of nine finishers. Job done – three runs from April 24 to May 28.

That was the last we saw of him until Monday a week ago.

The most intriguing element of the story must surely be why he was sent to Morris after the gelding operation if he was eventually destined for one of the top Irish jumping yards. Indeed, the stable that is second only to the magical Willie Mullins.

Morris has been training since 2002 with runners on the flat since 2004 and, apart from two blanks during that time, he has been a regular winner. In 2025 he boasts a decent strike-rate with 14 winners, a tally beaten only three times with the peak of 19 coming in 2011.

Coincidentally, the day of King Gris’ Ayr coup, Morris had a winner later on at Wolverhampton, then one the following day at Newcastle, and another on Saturday back at Dunstall Park. No reason then not to send a horse to Morris? Maybe, but here’s another coincidence. The trainer has run only two individual horses over jumps last season and this. They are King Gris and the useful chaser Royal Deeside who has won twice this term.

The coincidence? Morris’s last jump runners before King Gris and Royal Deeside had been as long ago as in 2011, the time of his best flat season. In all, before 2024/25 he sent out a total of 29 sporadic runners over the quarter-century for a single jumping success.

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If you want a strike-rate at the other end of the scale, how about Sara Bradstock, widow of Mark Bradstock and daughter of my long-term Daily Telegraph colleague John Oaksey. After the Bradstocks’ Mr Vango won a 3m6f chase in testing ground at Exeter two seasons back by 50 lengths, I thought he would knock the Irish off their collective perches at Cheltenham in the National Hunt Chase.

That proved beyond him at that stage, but last winter he went unbeaten through a forensically chosen three-race campaign, culminating with success in the Midlands Grand National over four and a quarter miles at Uttoxeter, a couple of weeks before the Grand National.

Mr Vango will now have the big race on his agenda next March, having come through a trial go over the big-race fences in Saturday’s Becher Chase (3m2f). Having looked beaten and running off top weight of 12st, from a peg 32lb higher than when winning that race at Exeter and 9lb higher than Uttoxeter, he was as unlucky a loser as you can find.

That said, in Twig he met an equally determined and deserving runner from the Ben Pauling stable, ridden as usual by Beau Morgan, son of Twig’s owner.

Twig had been my long-priced nap for the 2025 Grand National and, in running tenth of the 34, was the second home-trained finisher intruding on the Irish juggernaut’s private carving up of the £1 million prizemoney. With Ben saying he “wouldn’t swop him”, for some reason I preferred to look elsewhere for my best bet on Saturday and grimaced as the close-up showed his head down with his rival’s up to get the better of a wonderful finish.

Every time Sara sends out a runner under Rules, I think back to all those years when her father and I comprised the Sunday Telegraph writing team at the Grand National.

While John was crafting his wonderful words for the larger, later editions in terms of readership, I was the “sprinter” charged with doing the fast version of events for the Irish, Scottish and Northern readership.

We operated from a house across the road from the track, with a phone in every room and shared with Brough Scott and others those facilities in Chasandi, the home of a very nice Scouser family. No phones in the track, no computers to put the words together, just a disembodied telephonist taking your words back in Fleet Street to send on to the printers.

One of the top writers at the time was Christopher Poole, a giant, genial, rotund chap who worked for the London Evening Standard. If you thought our system in today’s world would be considered tortuous, Chris had to relate his to his own travelling telephonist, Max, who would then repeat the words back to Fleet Street! If Mr Vango does beat all those Irish stars next spring, even I won’t be able to resist a tear or two remembering John and quite a few others too.

 - TS

Monday Musings: Mr Vango and a Wincanton Fandango

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So we’ve seen the first day declarations for Cheltenham, writes Tony Stafford. Ballyburn was duly taken out of the opening Supreme Novices’ Hurdle leaving Willie Mullins with only six of the 12 declared runners. At time of writing, he has 13 of the 24 in Ballyburn’s race, the 2m5f opener on Wednesday.

As four of those run tomorrow, he can only have a maximum of another eight to help with the owners’ badges – you get a lovely lunch there. More’s the pity, I won’t be partaking of it myself this year.

Willie has contented himself with just the one back-up to the now unbackable State Man in tomorrow’s Champion Hurdle. He also runs Zarak The Brave for the double greens, Messrs Mounir and Souede, one of his host of top juveniles from last season. He twice contested big races – though not the Triumph – against Lossiemouth and did well to run her close in a Grade 1 at Punchestown last May.

The home team of four is emotionally led by the wonderful Not So Sleepy, not just the best, but most versatile 12-year-old in training, still around 100-rated on the flat and twice a winner of the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth, last December switched to Sandown, for Hughie Morrison and Lady Blyth.

That he could run away from such as Love Envoi, 2nd to Honeysuckle in the Mares’ Hurdle last year, You Wear It Well, successful in the mares’ novice in 2023, and Goshen, back to life with a win at Exeter on Friday, tells his quality. As indeed does his official rating of 158, easily the highest of the home contingent and third only behind State Man (169) and Irish Point (159), winner of his last four with progressive ease for Gordon Elliott.

Last week I expressed my sympathy and embarrassment at not realising the extent of Mark Bradstock’s illness to which he succumbed a few days after his final recorded training success with Mr Vango at Exeter.

Knowing his lifelong determination and just how deeply the late Lord Oaksey felt about Cheltenham and National Hunt racing in general, it was always long odds-on that his daughter and Mark’s widow Sara would keep the show going and that he would take up his engagement in the 3m6f National Hunt Chase for amateur riders.

It will be her first runner since, but she had the training of Carruthers for three seasons in point-to-points after he retired from the NH scene as a previous Hennessy Gold Cup winner and will have been right there in the middle of the training of their Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, Coneygree.

If that horse could be prepared by their small team to see off the might of Willie Mullins, Noel Meade, Jonjo O’Neill, Oliver Sherwood, Paul Nicholls, Alan King, Venetia Williams, Nicky Henderson, Henry De Bromhead et al nine years ago, then why not a repeat against one each from Willie and nephew Emmet Mullins, Gordon Elliott and a trio from home stables of Ben Pauling, Anthony Honeyball and Lucinda Russell?

None of the sextet ranged against him have won over the distance of his Exeter success – three miles, six furlongs - and no doubt the market is being unduly influenced by the cowardly 132 mark allotted for that win by the official handicapper.

I thought 20lb rather than 12lb would be the minimum. The field at Exeter contained a trio of last-time winners and as commentator Mike Cattermole said as they came to the 14th of the 21 fences: “It’s anyone’s race”. Mr Vango had made all to that point, and apart from a first-fence faller, the other six were still in touch. All three-mile winners, they simply were steamrollered in the last phase of the content as Mr Vango’s exceptional stamina kicked in and he stretched ever further clear.

Rarely do you see races where the leader is more than a fence clear of his still-competing rivals and that was the case as he jumped the last and over the winning line, with of an official 60 lengths margin over a recent previous course and distance winner. I bet Ben Jones wished he could turn amateur for one race tomorrow.

Instead, we have Gina Andrews, easily the best lady amateur riding and multiple (ten times!) point-to-point lady champion. She knows her way around Cheltenham at the Festival, too, having won on Domesday Book for Stuart Edmunds in the 24-runner Kim Muir Chase for amateur riders at 40/1 seven years ago.

Her tally is fast approaching 600 wins, with her points score on the way to 500 and under Rules on 91 with 84 over jumps and seven on the flat. As with Patrick Mullins in Ireland, who habitually has a succession of steering jobs (maybe not quite) in bumpers, Gina can keep the weekends going with regular wins for her husband Tom Ellis, trainer king of the point-to-point field. She is about as amateur in proficiency terms as Patrick and just as capable – while she gets most of her on-course practice, unlike him, jumping fences.

Straight after Exeter, Mr Vango was a 25/1 chance. The first entry stage came soon after and there were only ten entered and his price stayed unaltered. Now the overnight declarations feature three absentees, one each for Willie Mullins, Elliott and Pauling, leaving all three with a single runner. Yet you could still (or so they said, ha!) get 25/1 first three each way with bedfellows Coral and Ladbroke.

As a very infrequent punter these days and then in the minute category I can reprise one of the most frustrating days ever of my life at Wincanton on Thursday. I’d gone with my friend Kevin Howard to watch his mate Fred Mills’ horse run in a novice hurdle.

Kevin drove, a pleasure as well as a rarity for me, and he needed to use the brake pedal only once – for ten seconds, all the 152 miles from near Brentwood. Coming back was even easier – rush hour M25 no problem. Tunnel straight through.

In between it was a nice surprise to see the amazing Lynda Burton in the owners’ dining room. “It’s my last day as we’ve moved to Berkshire from down here. I’ve been here for nine years and will be at Cheltenham next week and don’t worry, I’ll still do Newmarket,” she said. Collective sigh of relief from owners and their friends all around the country at that news!

After all the pluses, it was what happened when I thought I’d have a tenner each way on my nap bet in the William Hill Radio Naps Table, in the 2.45 at Lingfield, that everything turned sour. While Kevin was in the paddock, I went off to watch Roger Teal’s hitherto out-of-form sprinter Whenthedealinsdone at Lingfield.

Peter Collier – he’ll be around the Mullins team all this week – said there’s a William Hill down the track, so I passed plenty of Tote terminals and ended up in the tiny shop. The outsider signage was bold enough but the two-man operation inside a small square area signalled to me just how much betting shops on racecourses in the UK have declined.

In the one in the main enclosure at Newmarket, once thronged with punters and with four or five people taking bets, now even on the big days it feels like an abandoned aircraft hangar and it’s almost a case of being asked by the staff, “Can I take a bet please?”

Anyway, Whenthedealinsdone is 20/1, so I write out my wager and as one punter was at the far till, peopled by a gentleman of some years, so you would have thought considerable experience, the other was the province of a much younger man.

I passed over my £20 note and slip, forbearing to state the price, which after an unnecessarily long interval for him to find it, he finally called back – “20/1”. So far, so good.

I waited and waited and after a while, with the field beginning to go in the stalls, he disappeared from the front vantage point. He emerged from under the counter brandishing what looked like a large toilet roll but of course it was a till roll. He proceeded to try to fix it in place - to no avail. With no customer to serve, one would have thought Mr Robertson might have suggested to his junior: “Give us the bet!” but no, Mr Experience said: “You’re doing it wrong. Let me show you.” That’s experience in all its majesty!

So “show you” he did. Meanwhile, my betting slip and crisp bill of monetary exchange languished somewhere in the ether on the other side of the counter. My hopes were dashed already as they exited the stalls, and when, after never looking like winning, Whenthedealinsdone ran on strongly for a close 3rd – designated the “eyecatcher” in the following morning’s Racing Post, dashed they proved to be.

Meanwhile till roll now in place to the satisfaction of both Mr Experience and Master Clueless, the latter, without any explanation passed back the same £20. At least he didn’t replace it with four grubby fivers. Little consolation. I’d done £30 in cold blood and it grated on me all day – indeed all week!

Of course, I pretty much lost my rag, asking for Mr R’s name and he pretty much gave it away before clamming up. “We mustn’t tell you”, he said, reasonably enough in these troubled times. It just occurred to me, do they still have the betting disputes people at the track? Presumably not. [They do – Ed.]

In the old days bookmakers were overwhelmed by many “slow bet” merchants who waited until their horse or dog was in contention before passing over the money undetected when they were inundated with punters screaming to get on. Now the boot’s on the other foot. Slow cashiers.

Why not, as everyone knows. Bookmakers offer a price but, on the phone, they’ll go away and want to lay you a fraction of it if anything at all – that’s my mates rather me talking.

There are a couple of aftermaths for this passage of play. The last show for Whenthedealinsdone was 20/1, as Master Clueless correctly called it back to me. Within seconds of the finish the SP came back and was 14/1. You may say, the game (bookies’ version) isn’t straight. It’s certainly one way traffic!

Also, while I’ve been writing (immediately after the final field was known) the 25/1 first three bookies’ offer on Mr Vanga is already down to 16/1. I’m sure it will be much less again by tomorrow. Good luck Sara and owners, the Cracker and Smudge partnership.

- TS

Monday Musings: Bradstocks Aiming High Once More

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There is one trainer who has held a licence for 36 seasons and who, in only one of them has he failed to train a winner, yet equally, has never reached double figures of wins in any of them, writes Tony Stafford. Any ideas?

In that time, he has won a Hennessy Gold Cup and a Cheltenham Gold Cup, both with horses bred from the same mare he bought unraced as a potential retirement interest for his father-in-law. Maybe you would be thinking he was a part-time wealthy “amateur” practitioner of the trade, but not a bit of it.

In just over two weeks’ time at Cheltenham, our hero will not be frightened to take on the might of Mullins, Henderson, Nicholls and the rest in the National Hunt Challenge Cup Amateur Jockeys’ Novice Chase over 3m6f.

Few horses get to the start of that race having won over the distance. Our man’s horse had run in only one chase, finishing third, before last week. Yet when he turned out for his second, over said distance, he was already rated 120, based on four runs over hurdles. I guarantee you when his new rating is revealed tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. on the BHA website, he will be quite a lot higher. In his case I would hate to be the handicapper!

Before Friday at Exeter – yes, we’re slowly revealing our evidence – the trainer had run six individual horses in a total of eight races this season (April to April) with no wins. To keep up the exemplary 36-year (minus one) record, the My Pension Expert Devon National Handicap Chase, only passed as fit for racing after a morning inspection, would hopefully change all that.

Step up Mark Bradstock and wife Sara, nee Lawrence, with the eight-year-old Mr Vango. Sara apparently told the Racing TV people beforehand – I didn’t see it – that he would win. He did, and how!

It wasn’t a massive field, but with two or three confirmed front-runners and all with far more experience than their gelding, it wasn’t guaranteed on first sight that he would get to the front. Get to the front he did, though, and listening again to Mike Cattermole’s commentary with accompanying pictures, you can tell his growing incredulity at what he, those at Exeter, and we around the country were witnessing.

Making all, and along with a couple of inevitable novicey errors, he strode through almost two full circuits of the galloping Haldon track in deep ground seemingly without much effort.

Halfway through the second time round the pack was still within reach but, coming to the end of the back straight and turning for home, the margin between Mr Vango and no doubt an equally disbelieving Ben Jones kept stretching. It was ten, then 20, then 30, and over last, according to Mike, he was 50 lengths clear.

The trio that was still going hadn’t even reached the penultimate fence when Mr Vango jumped the last. Neither had they arrived at the final obstacle as Ben was pulling him up. The finishing margin was 60 lengths. Foxboro, an old slowcoach who had toiled in rear all the way so hadn’t really been involved in the unequal task of trying to match strides with this galloping automaton, plodded on past two others to record a symbolic but still rewarding £6k runner-up spot, 14 lengths clear of the legless other pair.

I cannot resist a little dig at the Racing Post. After the win, Mark Bradstock’s prizemoney tally for the season is listed as £1,492 – the Exeter race alone was worth 13 grand to the winner. [Of course, geegeez has it correct at £16.5k in seasonal earnings – Ed.]

I think I should declare a slight personal interest. Sara Lawrence became Sara Oaksey when her father John inherited his late father’s titles as Lord Thevethin and Oaksey, the latter being the name he preferred to use. Since Mark, previously five years’ assistant to the great Fulke Walwyn and winner of 18 races as a jockey, took out his licence in 1989, she has been a constant vital cog in the small family outfit along with showjumping son Alfie and point-to-point rider/trainer Lily. As their web site shows, they still have limitless ambition along with unerring belief that they hold the key to developing jumping horses to their highest potential.

The mare Plaid Maid that Mark sourced won five races for John, one hurdle (probably to his annoyance) but then four in her main job over fences. It was after her racing career though that she made her mark on the sport, producing both Carruthers, their 2011 Hennessy winner, of which John was part-owner. He, sadly, died the following year.

Carruthers continued racing for Mark Bradstock for four more years then, aged 13, transferred to Sara to train in point-to-points. Over the next three years he ran 17 times for one win, with daughter Lily in the saddle each time, retiring as a 15-year-old.

I’m sure Sara and Mark have constantly wished they could have told him that Carruthers’ little brother   Coneygree had won the Cheltenham Gold Cup. I remember there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when he beat Willie Mullins’ Djakadam and 14 others nine years ago next month.

Coneygree was still a novice – the first since Captain Christy in 1974 to win the Gold Cup – and did it having been unbeaten in his first three chases, at Newbury twice and Kempton. He made all the running, jumping boldly, at Cheltenham and I couldn’t help wondering last week if that might also be the recipe for success with Mr Vango if he takes his place in the field next month.

Coneygree’s path to the Gold Cup was troubled – he had almost two years off before that first chase late in 2014 because of injury. After the triumph he won one more race at Sandown in November of the following season, but that was it as far as wins go.

Plaid Maid had been bought to interest John after his retirement, as if being the leading light in the Injured Jockeys Fund for many years and an honorary member of the Jockey Club wouldn’t have been enough for most people, never mind the writing.

His father had been Chief Allied prosecutor of leading Nazi criminals at the Nuremburg War Trials and John, expected to be a lawyer – he studied law at Harvard after his initial studies at Oxford – watched the proceedings as a deeply impressionable young man.

He preferred though to become a journalist, but one that could combine writing with winning 200 races as a jumps amateur. My good luck was that, by joining the Daily Telegraph in 1972, I was able to watch at first hand the way in which he combined his art with his love of riding and horses. And I did so for the next three decades. He always greeted me with, “Hello boy!”

For many years we worked in tandem on reporting the Grand National for the Sunday Telegraph. In those days there was a limited number of telephones and we used to have the use of one room and a land line in a house called Chasandi sited dead opposite the Aintree main entrance. Brough Scott and others also had similar facilities in other rooms in the house. I think the newspapers paid for the couple’s extension!

I took my notes, attending the initial stage of the post-race press conference, then repaired to offer my version of events verbatim over the phone to readers of the Irish, Scottish, and northern editions of the paper. John’s considered, exhaustive, rounded-out and always unique version came an hour or so later and the rest of the country got his elegant turn of phrase. Mine disappeared into the ether!

One incident I’ll never forget was the time he asked me to join him while he was working for ITV at the Derby. In those days the beautiful grassy paddock (sorry Epsom, that one now isn’t a patch on it even if it lets the racegoers see the horses) was down where the racecourse stables still are now. John had a small raised cabin with a big picture window halfway down one side as he watched and spoke to the viewers.

I’m not sure I did much for him that day - it’s not as if he asked me to go get him a cup of tea and a biscuit or anything - but there’s a reason I’m fond of relating it. It was 1981, the year of Shergar, one of the greatest Derby winners but one that is remembered for what he wasn’t allowed to do rather than what he did on the racecourse or might have done at stud. Everyone before 2000 knew the name, even now you occasionally hear it in stand-up routines.

But back to Mr Vango and friends. Have a look when you get a moment at the lovely website of Mark and Sara Bradstock and you will wonder how, in these days of trainers with 300 horses to call upon, these amazing people get so few chances to show how good they are.

Coneygree gave Nico De Boinville’s career the jump start that was needed for Nicky Henderson to take notice. He was still a conditional when he won the Gold Cup. In Coneygree’s previous race he was unavailable, and Richard Johnson stepped in. Nico said: “I dreaded that he would keep the mount for the Gold Cup but when he won the Denman Chase at Newbury, Sara called to say he was my ride.”

Some family, some legacy and if Mr Vango runs and wins – he’s 25/1 with bookmakers with whom you might get on, it could encourage a few more people to support them.

Talking of support, it’s the House of Commons debate on affordability checks at Westminster Hall today. If racing is to have any chance of getting proper funding, it’s vital that the people that can wish to bet are not artificially denied the chance and the case is properly put to the proportion of MPs who are lukewarm about racing.

My sources say, even without those fatuous checks, bookmakers need shaking up, so often are even tiny bets refused. One friend tells of the Australian system or how it was when he lived there a while ago and I doubt it’s changed since.

When he was there, bookmakers were allowed on course, while off-course was their tote (called TAB) monopoly. Depending on which ring the bookie worked in at the track, he or she was compelled to lay to take out a minimum value in each respective ring.

We have the best racing in the world and the worst conversion from what’s bet on it into prize money. Getting rid of this affordability nonsense would be a first step, but much more needs to be done even when that stain on the sport is crushed, as I hope it will be. I wonder what John, or My Noble Lord, as the late John McCririck always called him, would have thought of it all!

- TS