Frodon wins King George VI Chase at Kempton for Paul Nicholls - Cornelius Lysaght reflects on the action

The script could hardly have been read any better.

After a year ravaged by Covid-19, racing and its audiences were gagging for a great, big, lavish King George Christmas present and, when it was unwrapped, what should pop out but the perfect gift: big-hearted Frodon, accompanied by the infectious, ear-to-ear grin of his star-turn jockey Bryony Frost.

Although probably the least discussed of the quartet of contenders saddled by Paul Nicholls, they dominated the whole thing and, in the end, were always doing enough to hold off the gallant runner-up Waiting Patiently and thereby present the champion trainer with a 12th win in the race.

While Hollie Doyle has been racing’s highest profile female jockey of late, Frost, 25, has long known all about the limelight – not least when successful on Frodon at the 2019 Cheltenham Festival – but this was comfortably the most significant day of her career.

Not only did she become the first woman to ride the winner of the Ladbrokes-sponsored King George VI Chase, the historic mid-season championship and a jumping ‘classic’, but with this being her 175th visit to the winners’ enclosure she is also now British jump racing’s winning-most female jockey.

“I was talking to my brother Hadden in America on Christmas Day,” she said, “and he said I was only one away from the record and imagine if I could do it in the King George – I said that doesn’t happen, Hadden, don’t be silly.

“I can’t quite believe me and Frodon can class ourselves as a King George-winning pair, but he’s one in a million, so athletic, determined and he’s the comfiest armchair I’ll ever sit in.

“Hollie breaks boundaries and breaks moulds, and I suppose that’s what we’ve done here today – [but] it’s not because I’m a girl, it’s the way I have been brought up, the way I’ve been taught."

Paul Nicholls admitted that the result was something of a surprise especially after the Peter Vogt-owned eight-year-old disappointed in the Many Clouds Chase at Aintree just three weeks earlier, a performance put down at least partly to the fact that the accomplished jumper had less fences to clear because of a low sun.

But he added that the horse which “you can never discount” had previously put in a “top drawer” effort to win a handicap chase with topweight at Cheltenham in October.

Now it looks like a return to National Hunt racing’s HQ, where he has successfully overcome the examining, left-handed challenge six times, for the Gold Cup in March is on the cards, via perhaps Newbury’s Denman Chase a month earlier.

“That puts him right in the Gold Cup picture,” said Nicholls whose previous King George victories have come with big names Kauto Star (five times) and See More Business, Silviniaco Conti and Clan Des Obeaux – third this time – all of which took the trophy twice.

“Frodon loves Cheltenham, and he keeps surprising everybody – never underestimate horses like him.”

Frost, who received a two-day suspension for careless riding when causing interference to fourth-placed Saint Calvados on the final bend, would relish the prospect.

She said: "[Right-handed] Kempton is not our favourite track; it’s a different stomping ground and the wrong way round, and Cheltenham is his playground, so why not give him a chance against the big guns on the big stage?"

Assessing his principal contenders, Nicholls thought that Clan Des Obeaux, who did not jump with his characteristic verve, ran ‘flat’, something he put down to a hard race when second behind Bristol De Mai at Haydock in November.

He considered that Cyrname – a well-fancied disappointment in the race for the second year running – “spat the dummy out” when not allowed a prominent role, and he will now review riding tactics.

Nicholls apart, the training performance of the day went to Ruth Jefferson for Waiting Patiently’s runners-up position after more than a year off the track because of injury.

Paul Nicholls’ former assistant Dan Skelton took the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase, staged over the same three miles as the King George, with a display of jumping by Shan Blue, ridden by the trainer’s jockey-brother Harry, that was outstanding.

In contrast Champion Hurdler Epatante, the long odds-on favourite, did not have the kind of jumping fluency you expect – not the turn of acceleration – when having his illustrious colours lowered by the redoubtable, Evan Williams-trained grey Silver Streak, given a wily, front-running ride by jockey Adam Wedge, in the Christmas Hurdle.

Like Frodon, Silver Streak’s win was a shock result – the fancy odds of two of the first three winners of the day, at 125/1 and 100/1, proved a sign of things to come.