This was an afternoon at the track when the big-race result was secondary to the cause it was supporting. For Faye Bramley it also marked a huge step forward in her training career as Glengouly, a 33-1 outsider, made all the running to win the Support the Hunt Family Fund December Gold Cup.
The Hunt Family Fund was set up by the BBC racing commentator, John Hunt, and his daughter, Amy, after the murder of his wife, Carol, and daughters, Hannah and Louise, to raise awareness of violence against women and support causes relating to young women.
Saturday’s race, the traditional feature of the December meeting, came at the end of a series of events over the past week, including a dinner and auction at Cheltenham on Thursday, which has raised nearly £500,000.
Hunt called the race as usual for Radio 5 Live, and said afterwards that, like most of those watching from the stands, he had expected Glengouly to be swallowed up by either Jagwar, the 11-4 favourite, or Vincenzo, the 7-2 second-favourite, after the turn for home. Sean Bowen had other ideas, and the champion jockey had kept enough back to repel their challenges on the uphill run to the line.
The winner’s owners, the Cheeky Pups syndicate, pledged £10,000 of their prize money to the Hunt Family Fund, while for Bramley, who is in her first full season with a licence, the win with a £16,000 castoff from the Willie Mullins stable was a remarkable success with only her fourth runner at Cheltenham.
“I’m gobsmacked,” Bramley said. “I can’t believe I’m even here, never mind having a winner. I couldn’t have been happier through the race as I know the horse inside out and I could tell he was loving it.”
Bramley trains from a yard owned by the former champion jockey, AP McCoy, and took out a full licence after running the stable for several years as a pre-training facility.
“I’ve worked for AP for about eight years,” Bramley said. “But we got a bit bored of the pre-training and we just wanted to give it a proper go. He [McCoy] was behind the decision. This horse was quite hard to train, but he’s come to life.”
Jagwar was less than two lengths behind the winner on his first start since winning the Plate Handicap Chase at last season’s festival, but he was taken out of the Gold Cup betting by Paddy Power and pushed out to 40-1 (from 25-1) for the Ryanair Chase at the festival over Saturday’s two-and-a-half mile trip.
Southwell: 12.00 Kamsinas 12.30 Henry Box Brown 1.00 Charles Ritz 1.30 Liam Mera Kai 2.00 Strong Run 2.35 Tigers Moon 3.10 Tramuntana (nap).
Carlisle: 12.10 Cristal D’Estruval 12.40 Shadow Chaser 1.10 Stride On 1.40 Letos (nb) 2.13 Platin Moon 2.48 Capricciose.
Four winners at last December’s meeting here went on to register a success at the festival in March and Adam Nicol’s Minella Study will be steered towards the Triumph Hurdle on Gold Cup day after his easy win in the opening juvenile hurdle.
Minella Study and One Horse Town, the odds-on favourite, went into the race with unbeaten records after two and four starts respectively and the pair were clear turning into the straight. It was Minella Study that found the better turn of foot and he flew the last on the way to a six-and-a-half length success.
“He works very well,” Nicol said of the winner, who was introduced to the Triumph Hurdle betting at 20-1 by Paddy Power. “I gave him a blow earlier in the week and he showed great speed. The thing about this horse is he doesn’t know he’s a racehorse yet. He’s going from strength to strength, he has speed and he travels.”
