My racing moment of the year

It takes a little bit of magic to train any racehorse. It takes plenty of magic to keep a 13-year-old sprinter bursting with energy and raring to go. I’m there applauding the superstars of British racing on many big occasions, but my racing moment of the year came in a woodland paddock behind Liphook Golf Club in Hampshire where, as he nuzzled his trainer John Bridger, Pettochside, a battle-hardened bay by Refuse To Bend with a white dab on his forehead, gratefully nibbled a few Polos from my hand and sniffed inquiringly at my notebook.

In racing we tend to form loyalties: loyalties to an up-and-coming apprentice jockey whom we have spotted heading for the big time; loyalties to heart-on-sleeve trainers whose joy in their charges’ success is totally infectious; loyalties to horses who have done us a good turn on the racetrack at a decent price. A few years back, my friend Derek Sinclair and I began noting the bounding enthusiasm of a gutsy five-furlong specialist with a particular liking for Goodwood and Ascot and we have followed every step of Pettochside’s career since. Pettochside isn’t a big-earning superstar from a gold-plated yard creaming the top Group races, but he is the perfect example of the joy to be had in racing at lower levels. Every year, since his first victory at 25-1 on the all-weather track at Wolverhampton in January 2012, Pettochside has won at least one race. What is remarkable is that, at the age of 13, as a specialist over the minimum sprint distance, Pettochside is still rocking up with all his old energy and enthusiasm.

Bred at the New Hall Stud in Ayrshire, Pettochside will never pass on his talent to a new generation. He was gelded before he ever saw a racecourse. He had 14 runs for the Newmarket trainer Stuart Williams and 20 for Winchester-based Chris Gordon before owner Peter Cook told John Bridger: ‘Have a look at this one. He’s dropped down the handicap a bit and you might be able to cheer him up’, and they bought him out of a claimer. The ‘cheering up’ at Upper Hatch Farm in Liphook has worked so well that Pettochside has had a total of 120 races. He has won 18 of them, been second 15 times and third on 17 occasions. The 13-year-old’s runs this year have brought two seconds and two thirds. He has won three times at Goodwood, the perfect track for speedsters, three times at Ascot, twice at Salisbury and Windsor and once each at Epsom, Chepstow, Kempton and Wolverhampton.

John Bridger’s is a small informal yard with notes for the farrier chalked up on a slate and a bag of carrots at the barn entry for those coming back from exercise. He has never had horses worth more than £20,000, but racing at lower levels raises possibilities that aren’t always available in multi-horsepower stables with huge squadrons streaming across the Newmarket gallops. When I asked how he keeps Pettochside sweet, his response was simple: ‘If they want it, they’ll do it’, and the gelding basically gets what he wants. He is fed at around 5 a.m. and every day, even if he is going racing later, he is turned out in the paddock on his own by 6 a.m. ‘He gets a bit stroppy with the other horses.’ Like his trainer and your correspondent Pettochside is a little stiff behind in the mornings but as soon as he reaches the gallops with his regular rider Tannya Bagoban he is fine. Rachel Cook, John’s daughter and assistant, notes that ‘He likes the girls’ and his record confirms it. Four of his most recent victories have been in the hands of Saffie Osborne and he has won, too, when ridden by Hollie Doyle and Josephine Gordon. ‘They sit with him and don’t try to fight him,’ says Pettochside’s trainer.

Soft ground and a female rider may bring out the best in him. It is his trainer, though, who must be given the credit for Pettochside’s longevity and it is surely more than coincidence that a certain J.J. Bridger also trained Megalala, who in June 2016 at Lingfield became the oldest horse to win on the Flat in Britain. Megalala, who won 20 of his 148 races, was finally retired at 17 and then not because he wasn’t enjoying his racing but because his trainer feared what might be said about him if anything happened to the veteran. And where is Megalala now? Twice they have given him away to would-be owners but he is back with the Bridger yard because retirement didn’t agree with him.

Nor would it agree with John Bridger himself who has been training horses for 56 years and doesn’t fancy golf or watching TV as an alternative. He, too, is still capable of springing a surprise: Arboy Will last year was his first first-time-out two-year-old winner – at 150-1. Despite the lack of blueblood inmates, he did win the prestigious Molecomb Stakes a few years back with the 100-1 shot Hotbee. I expect he was a happy horse too.