John Dawson's North Yorkshire stable punches above it weight with Cheltenham victory
With racing power being increasingly focused around large-scale yards, the season opener at the spiritual home of National Hunt racing yielded a result that proved smaller scale training operations can still challenge on the top stage.
John Dawson, who runs a yard with his wife Alice and a small team on the edge of the North York Moors near Great Ayton, caused an upset in the Grade Two 2m½f novice hurdle at Cheltenham with 20-1 outsider Kingofthefrontier, his third runner at Prestbury Park.
John, who scored a Cheltenham Festival victory as a jockey aboard Sine Nomine two years ago, said he had savoured coming from the rear for the biggest win of his training career. Amazingly, getting one over the bigger yards, including one of National Hunt’s superpowers, and at the home of jump racing, in the Oddschecker Novices’ Hurdle has come just a year after John took out a training licence.
Nevertheless, while the win proved an emotional experience for John, he said he had not been overly surprised by Kingofthefrontier’s £47,500 success at Cheltenham given the five-year-old gelding had scooped £25,000 at Southwell in the summer when landing a maiden hurdle.
The fledgling trainer broke Kingofthefrontier as a two-year-old for leading point to pointer Howardian Hills-based Cherry Coward, with whom he has shared success with as a jockey, including riding her 200th winner at the Staintondale Hunt Point-to-Point in 2017.
He said: “We ran a horse in the same race at Charm Park and saw kingofthefrontier win. He just lobbed away around and Joe Wright rode him on the day and once he put him into the race he sealed it very quickly and galloped away through the line.
"Charm Park often produces a good race of young horses and the winners do generally go on. It takes a little bit of jumping around there and you need a horse that travels and jumps and stays well.
”It just so happened our owner George Critchley was looking for a rules horse if we found one we really liked, so we did a deal and it has worked out brilliantly.
“For me, it was a bit of a no-brainer, particularly as he had the five grand point to point bonus attached to him. He duly collected the bonus in the summer, so the pressure was off with him really, so that’s why we ended up going to Cheltenham and having a little go.”
Asked how victory at Cheltenham as a trainer compared with his winning there as a jockey, John replied: "There’s so much more that goes into preparing a horse.
"I was very emotional when I won the Foxhunters as a rider, but to think of how far you’ve come in the time my wife Alice and I and our little team have been doing it, to think we could go to Cheltenham and mix it with top trainers was a bit daunting when you look at who was in the race.”
Outpacing Dan Skelton’s Cooltobecareless, the 13-8 favourite, and Nicky Henderson’s Planters Punch, John said kingofthefrontier had “made up a fair chunk of ground”.
John said Kingofthefrontier had always impressed with his speed, but was “a little bit horse-shy” and had edged away from Cooltobecareless.
The upset came amid calls from prominent figures such as broadcaster and Road To Cheltenham presenter Lydia Hislop for some sort of financial fair play rule to be introduced to protect competition and smaller yards in jump racing.
Before the race, the favourite’s trainer, Dan Skelton had already trained 115 winners this season.
John said: "The fact that we can still compete with those makes it even sweeter for us. They have got to that position by being good at their job and if you’re going to penalise them for doing that why would you aspire to wanting to be anyone and that sort of size. When you’re a little trainer you’re more than entitled to go and have a go.
He said: "We’ve done a lot of breaking in and we will continue to do that. The training was a beautiful thing for us to be able to do because there was no pressure on it with the breaking in being our bread and butter. We really enjoy it. Having a little less quantity and a little more quality is definitely the way I’d like to go. I love dealing with young horses, we have lovely facilities and routine for them."
John said he was now eyeing completing the ten-hour round trip to Cheltenham again with Kingofthefrontier, who haas been dubbed the “poster boy of jump racing”, in the spring. He said: “He’s still got a bit to go and things to learn, but hopefully he’ll keep improving as we go along in the season.”