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Ashforth's Angles: Hoping Jessop can win at Warwick

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Warwick

Warwick: features some interesting figures in the handicap hurdle

  PICTURE: Sam Lawrie  

 By David Ashforth 6:01PM 22 MAR 2016 

SO MUCH can be hidden in a small race. Take the 3m2f handicap hurdle at Warwick (3.50).

First, there’s the fascination of finding out whether or not Springhill Lad – twice a non-runner so far this month – will finally take the plunge. Go on, have a go!

Then there’s the intriguing matter of Talk Of The South and the intriguing figures of Alan Jessop and David Loder, trainers of Stickers and Nancy’s Trix respectively.

Paul Henderson’s stoutly bred and steadily improving former Irish point-to-pointer (that’s Talk Of The South) savoured a sharp step up in trip when coasting to triumph at Plumpton nine days ago. If the seven-year-old is as effective on faster ground he will, as the expression goes, “be hard to beat under a 7lb penalty.”

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Stickers, even though he is not carrying a penalty – never having won anything in his life – and boasts a Derby winner (Generous) as his sire and a St Leger winner (Bustino) as his dam’s sire.

Which reminds me of a story the late Captain Tim Forster told me about two trainers watching a bad hurdle race. As the runners went by one trainer said: “That horse is by Nijinsky, you know, beautifully bred.” His companion replied: “So am I but I’m ******* useless, too.”

Lightly-raced, Stickers has a penchant for pulling up and unless a year off has made him see the light the prospect of the nine-year-old giving Jessop his first winner since 2012 seems remote.

A permit holder, Jessop’s horses run in the red and green colours of his wife, Gloria, and have been doing so since 1994. It was not until 2005 that Jessop finally trained a winner, when Moss Run won at Huntingdon.

By then Jessop was 65 but, buoyed by the fruits of his perseverance and patience, he pressed on, running a handful of horses each season and occasionally reaching the winner’s enclosure.

In all, Jessop has trained six winners under Rules, the star having been Majy D’Auteuil, who won twice in 2009, each race worth £4,436, which is more than any of the yard’s other winners have earned.

It would be nice if Jessop, now 75, acquired more horses capable of winning in the now familiar red and green colours. There is hope, because Jessop has long run what seems to be a thriving farming business in Essex. Go on, splash out and buy something decent. Gloria will be pleased.

Loder has had plenty of experience of doing that, having selected and trained horses for Sheikh Mohammed in the 1990s and beyond.

Between 1993 and 2005 he won 11 Group One races. In 2005 Loder stepped out of the pressure cooker, not returning to training under rules until 2014.

Now a jumps trainer on a modest scale, hopefully enjoying a less intense working life in Shropshire, it will be interesting to see how Loder fares.

Another of Sheikh Mohammed’s team, John Ferguson, has done well as a jumps trainer. Maybe Loder will do the same.

 

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