Sporting Life
Action from Redcar

Redcar Two Year Old Trophy: Don't dismiss northern highlight this weekend

By Mike Vince
12:45 · MON September 30, 2024

It may be known as 'Arc weekend' for some, but Mike Vince argues that Redcar's Saturday highlight is also always worth the time of day.

We’ve come a long way since that Thursday afternoon in late October 1993 when something almost unheard of happened. The BBC changed their schedule to allow BBC2 to show three races not from one of ‘the usual suspects’ like Ascot, but from Redcar.

It was to show the first running of a new race, the Redcar Two Year Old Trophy, a big-money prize where the weight the horses carry in the race, over six furlongs, was determined by its sale price.

It was the brainchild of Lord Zetland and his then management team and meant that the North East venue, who had existed on a modest programme with annual highlights of the Andy Capp Handicap and the Vaux Gold Tankard (both, sadly now deceased) had a new centrepiece.

John Lowe on board Cape Merino won the inaugural running beating Risky, the hot favourite from the Hannon yard, and Bid for Blue, the runner-up's stablemate. The winner, sent off at 33/1, made all.

The race was hailed a great success and has been the template for other such races, as well as giving the always welcoming track a few minutes in the spotlight.

In short, it has never looked back.

The northern trainers have targeted the race almost ever since - Tim Easterby’s four victories are headlined by the flying Pipalong, who took the prize in 1998, and Kevin Ryan claimed it with the classy Bogart in 2011.

And horses have gone on from winning the race to succeed at the highest level. Limato’s unbeaten juvenile season in 2014 included the Redcar showpiece, ridden home by Graham Lee to justify huge market support, with Mattmu in second and another 20 helpless pursuers strung out like washing in behind.

Limato was one of Redcar's star winners

But Limato isn’t the shortest-priced winner in the history of the race. That mantle was moved a year ago when the Clive Cox-trained Dragon Leader, who arrived in the North East having landed the big sales race at the York Ebor meeting and finished second in the one at Doncaster, took his earnings in little more than a month past the £300,000 mark with a facile win against nine rivals at 4/7.

Redcar offer more than £250,000 in prize money on what is for a homely and welcoming course by far and away their biggest day.

Not only do they have the two-year-old race, the one chance to see the course on terrestrial TV, but also a £47,000 Listed event - the Guisborough Stakes - which is often targeted by big Newmarket yards, and the final of the track's long-standing straight mile series.

Three of the last four winners of the Two Year Old Trophy have made the long journey from the South - expect more to try on Saturday and the enterprise of those who created this race again proving inspirational.

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