Lizzy Kelly and Tea For Two land Betway Bowl Chase
Tea For Two and Lizzie Kelly won the Betway Bowl Chase at Aintree. Check out our report and reaction from connections and watch the free video replay.
Betway Bowl - 2.50 Aintree result
1st Tea For Two 10/1
2nd Cue Card 2/1f
Race Report
Lizzie Kelly gained a famous success in the Grade One Betway Bowl Chase at Aintree as Tea For Two saw off the reigning champion Cue Card.
Kelly was content to bide her time in the early stages of the race, which were dominated by Bristol De Mai and Silviniaco Conti.
The field were tightly grouped for much of the three-mile Grade One contest, but began to be stretched out amidst some ragged jumping in the final mile.
Silviniaco Conti and Smad Place were the first two to try and lay it down to Cue Card, but Colin Tizzard's veteran saw them both off and opened up a lead over the fourth-last with a bold leap that drew a roar of encouragement from the stands.
But Kelly encouraged her mount into contention to join the 11-year-old over the penultimate fence of the three-mile-one-furlong contest and threw down one final challenge to the former King George hero, the 2/1 market leader.
As the pair battled it out on the run down to the last, the younger legs of Tea For Two finally began to assert and after meeting the final fence on a good stride Kelly kept her willing partner up to the task to defeat the rallying Cue Card by a fast-diminishing neck.
There had been plenty of focus on Kelly last month when she and Tea For Two lined up in the Timico Cheltenham Gold Cup but the pair got no further than the second fence on that occasion.
Reaction
Lizzie Kelly: "That was fantastic. We were quietly confident going into the Gold Cup when our dreams were taken away from us. He's a horse that has produced time and time again for me and my family, everyone else puts in more work than I do but I get the opportunity to ride him. He was a dream ride. This means more than winning the Grade One at Kempton on him, I didn't really appreciate that at the time but this is special."
She went on: "We didn't let on how confident we were coming here today, we were always more confident about him handling this better than Cheltenham because he's done all his winning on flat tracks.
"To start off with I wasn't happy as I didn't feel he was travelling, but then he started to pull my arms out so I took him back. My jockey coach Rodi (Greene) had told me how long the run-in was and I ran the track and we agreed on that.
"I got to Cue Card and we were half a length down when realistically I wanted to be half a length up because I didn't think his jumping would stick with Tea's. My lad was brave at the last, I didn't ask him, he did that himself. It's fantastic for the yard, I missed our winner at Cheltenham this year but I've had my reward today.
"It was hard what hapenned in the Gold Cup after all the build-up. Mum said to me she didn't know what I'd find today, he'd had a long season, but she's done a lot of hard work with him. Next year's Gold Cup dream is still alive."
Assistant trainer Jane Williams, Kelly's mother, said: "I spent three-quarters of the race in the car park, trying to hide. Obviously we had such a disappointment at Cheltenham. I felt I had him absolutely spot-on that day and we were expecting a big run, so you can imagine how we felt.
"I always feel you have to enjoy the journey, so I don't mind the press coverage, but it was so hard when you're expecting a big run to come crashing down at the second fence.
"Obviously Lizzie fell on her head and had a bad fall. The horse was fine, but mentally you want to go home and give up. We had a quiet couple of days. We scraped ourselves off the floor after that and it was 50-50 whether I came here today because I sort of felt he'd done enough.
"But he's been doing a bit of dressage and has been really well and very flamboyant, so we thought we'd give it a shout. Today was a Grade One and not just a Grade One novice. You're taking on the best and we've beaten them.
"You'd have to say the horse was brave as he had to dig very deep. Lizzie has done a lot of work with the horse and it's a massive family effort. This is for everybody."
Cue Card's trainer Colin Tizzard scotched any retirement talk for the 11-year-old.
He said: "It was a fantastic run. He loved being ridden that positively. We could just see Tea For Two travelling quite well behind us all the time; they were very close in the King George VI Chase [at Kempton on Boxing Day] and they were very close again today. It was a lovely run.
"I know people say he's 11, but he's as good as he's ever been. He loves racing. His season is done, he'll go out in the field now on this nice spring grass. But after about a month we will start riding again because we don't want him getting old. He doesn't like the flies so we will have him in by day and ride him and turn him out at night. We'll treat him like a king, because that's what he is!"
Smad Place's jockey Wayne Hutchinson was delighted with third place and said: "He has run a marvellous race. I have said in the past he doesn't know how to run a bad race. Today he just met one down the back wrong and that put him on the back foot - you are chasing the race then. He has galloped all the way to the line and I am very proud of him."