How Pony Club schooling got top novice Ahoy Senor back on track for Lucinda Russell at Wetherby as Cheltenham options weighed up

The Wetherby victory – on the back of Pony Club-type schooling – dispelled any doubts about the strapping horse’s burgeoning reversal after a Boxing Day reverse to the talented Bravemansgame at Kempton that surprised some.

Peter Scudamore challenges Ahoy Senor to show potential in Towton Novices’ Chase at Wetherby

This leaves Russell and her partner Peter Scudamore, the eight-times champion jockey, with an intriguing Cheltenham dilemma – the blue riband Boodles Gold Cup, Grade One Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase at the National Hunt Festival or head straight to Aintree where the galloping track will suit Ahoy Senor.

It is a conundrum that will take longer to solve than the winning trainer’s struggles opening the gate to the Wetherby winners’ enclosure in order to greet her horse and victorious rider Derek Fox.

And, given that this was one of the trickier obstacles on a typically dreich winters’ afternoon, it was also indicative of Ahoy Senor’s dominance as the colour soon returned to a Russell’s cheery complexion.

“He took a few fences to warm up but this is a brilliant track to bring him to – it’s a galloping track with big fences. He’s a huge horse and he needs big fences to respect them,” she said.

Trimuphant in a Grade One novice hurdle at Aintree’s Randox Grand National meeting last April, Ahor Senor is not yet a natural over fences in the red and black colours of Carron and Bruce Wymer as well as the trainer’s father Peter.

Ears pricked, Fox’s mount was deliberate at the first of 19 fences before finding his rhythm in the back straight on the first circuit where he appeared to attack the two opening ditches in the gathering gloom.

Yet Ahoy Senor didn’t flinch when Ashtown Lad and Harry Skelton joined the lead before the second circuit where Ahoy Senor’s athleticism at the ditches was again pronounced.

It was significant, on the long turn for home, that three-time winner Saint Palais, and in receipt of 11lb from the odd-on favourite, was the first of the four runners to be under pressure.

But it was Ahoy Senor’s breathtaking acceleration heading to the penultimate fence, coming at the end of a three mile race, t was a sight to behold – here was horse with an abundance of stamina.

And, in some respects, the ruddy-faced Fox’s mount jumped the obstacle too well – there was a small stumble on landing, but not as prounounced as Midnight Shadow’s final fence drama in last November’s Paddy Power Gold Cup and whose tragic death in last weekend’s Sky Bet Chase has hung so heavily over racing.

Ahoy Senor was big, bold and brave at the final fence, to Russell’s relief, before storming up the incline to the winning line with more than five lengths in hand on the never threatening runner up Noble Yeats.

Russell’s immediate instinct was the Brown Advisory – the three mile championship race for novice chasers at Cheltenham – is the more likely Festival target given this was Ahoy Senor’s fourth start over fences.

“He’ll probably go for the Brown Advisory. He’s still a novice; he’s got an immense talent but we’re still crafting him,” she explained to The Yorkshire Post. “We didn’t lose anything in defeat at Kempton and if we’d gone here straight from his win at Newbury we wouldn’t have learned anything, but Kempton taught us something.”

She talked about the importance of knowing what makes horses tick in order to maximise their potential and longevity in the sport.

And it was fascinating to listen how Russell and Scudamore, a partnership defined by One For Arthur’s Grand National win five years ago, learned from the Kempton defeat where Ahoy Senor’s wayward jumping lacked the necessary fluency for a Grade One race.

“It’s brilliant, I’m glad we went to Kempton,” she told Racing TV before the long journey back to Kinross was made even more pleasurably by Scotland’s dramatic Six Nations win over England at Murrayfield.

“I know we got beaten, but I saw a few things there about his jumping that I think we’ve managed to sort out. He was just getting sucked to the bottom of his fences a bit - rather than taking that long stride and being bold enough he was just chipping in and getting a bit tight.

“We did some stuff in the school, it’s so Pony Club but it does work. I think that helped him and Derek was full of confidence today. He’s a fantastic jockey and I’m just delighted that he’s riding him.

“I think a return to a galloping track like this has really suited him, but he’s just a lovely horse and to be creating something like this is just fantastic. He just has that ability to surge into the fences, I think he jumped the ditches really well, they’re just backing him off a bit and he needs these bigger fences to back him off.”

tom.richmond@ypn.co.uk

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