Top broadcaster Mike Cattermole looks at the champion jockey race in this week's column as he prepares to call the prestigious Lincoln Handicap for the first time.
De Sousa back but can he defend his title?
Silvestre De Sousa, the champion jockey in three of the past four years, has spent much of the winter in Hong Kong and bowed out with a winner at Sha Tin on Sunday.
According to the PR company Squareintheair, his 44 winners there amassed £6.7 million in prize money and worked out at an average of £23,000 per race. Nice work!
This dwarfs his domestic return last year when his 148 winners - in the championship season - netted £3.018m at an average of just £3,875 per race.
Small wonder that the Brazilian admitted that he wished he could have stayed in Hong Kong for longer.
From riding at a maximum three meetings in a week between Sha Tin and Happy Valley, with minimal travel, De Sousa now returns to the daily grind of motorway driving up and down the country where the rewards, as shown above, are much reduced.
Now that he has signed a retainer with King Power Racing, who have horses all over the country, you do wonder if this will take away some of the flexibility that his previous freelance status allowed him. It certainly won’t make life easier for him or his agent Shelley Dwyer to pick and choose.
But at least the association with King Power – who have over 100 in training - will allow him to get on some good quality horses. It remains a mystery why his opportunities in the top races have been so limited. It’s certainly not down to the lack of talent nor desire.
However, now that he is a three-time champion, it might be that his priorities will change this year with the new job and so I wouldn’t be taking any of the odds-on prices being quoted about his retaining the title.
Perhaps this is the time for Oisin Murphy to step up. The man who rode more winners – 198 - in 2018 than anyone else, is hungry for that first title. The 7/4 offered is hardly generous but would make a lot more sense.
De Bon Couer looks outstanding
Covering the French jumping on Sky Sports Racing is a breath of fresh air. After all, the French influence on our own jumping scene over here for the past decade or so has been massive. And of course, French-breds won half of the races contested at the 2019 Cheltenham Festival.
Last Sunday’s card at Auteuil featured the successful return of the brilliant mare De Bon Coeur, who had not been seen since last May when winning the French Champion Hurdle. However, the Grande Course des Haies, as it is known locally, is nothing like our Champion Hurdle, being run over 5,100 metres or around three miles and one a half furlongs.
Dawn Run, already the winner of the British and Irish Champion Hurdles in 1984, achieved the unique treble at Auteuil that year for Paddy Mullins.
Son Willie returned to win the race in 2003 and 2004 with Nobody Told Me (a name that I had long forgotten) and Rule Supreme and then again in 2011 and 2012 to win twice with the admirable Thousand Stars.
In recent years, David Pipe, Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson have won with Un Temps Pour Tout, Ptit Zig and L’Ami Serge, all French-breds of course.
Last year, that three-year British run was ended in style by De Bon Coeur, who is trained by Francois Nicolle.
However a hairline fracture meant she was ruled out until last Sunday when she brushed aside some high-class opposition in the Prix Hypothese over an extended two miles. Her performance exuded class and she is fully expected to successfully defend her title on May 18.
In fact, some local experts consider De Bon Coeur to be the best hurdling mare seen for many, many years in France. She is a daughter of Vision D’Etat who was also raced by the Detre family and memorably won the French Derby and the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Sadly, the stallion died of a heart attack last year.
Let’s hope we get some more British and Irish interest in this year’s race, which will give us even more of a steer as to how superior she is to our stayers.
In last year’s race, she easily defeated Bapaume by 16 lengths and on his last two starts he has been second to Presenting Percy at Gowran Park (beaten just over a length) and then fourth, beaten eight lengths, by Paisley Park in the Stayers’ Hurdle two weeks ago.
In this golden era of female equine stars both over jumps and on the Flat, De Bon Coeur is right up there.
Lincoln thoughts
The Lincoln was one of the first races that I can remember and for the first time this Saturday, I will get the chance to call the race on the course.
Auxerre, winner of his last three starts, is all the rage and looks like going off one of the shortest-priced favourites for years.
However, anybody that has followed this cavalry charge is more than aware that the market leader has a terrible record in the race. Six successful jollies in the past 20 runnings is a comparatively golden period against the two previous decades when no favourites went in between 1979 and 1998.
Obviously the gamble on Saltonstall is in anticipation of his new trainer Adrian McGuinness rediscovering the gelding’s very useful form, last seen when winning at the Curragh last May.
Ripp Orf and Safe Voyage are interesting but are they better at seven furlongs?
I will take a chance with the one-time smart performer South Seas who has been given a real opportunity by the handicapper.
Now off 100 having been 110 at his peak, he makes his debut for Philip Kirby and Jamie Spencer is an eye-catching booking for a yard that has provided the former champion jockey with two wins from only six rides to date.
Lucy Gardner rides out her claim
Congratulations to Lucy Gardner who became just the sixth female jump jockey to ride out her claim at Exeter on Sunday.
Gardner has ridden three winners in Jersey to add to her 72 winners in the UK, of which, remarkably, 67 were trained by her mother, Sue.
Lucy thus joins Lorna Vincent, Rachael Green, Lucy Alexander, Bridget Andrews and Bryony Frost in an exclusive club, with Lizzie Kelly knocking on the door with just five more needed to get in.
After that, we could be waiting for quite a while for the door to be rattled again, although both Page Fuller and Rachael McDonald are well on their way.
Make no mistake, it is not easy.