Wetherby switch pays off for tilt at Festival

A slightly fortuitous purchase at Doncaster Sales when Thomson’s wife, Quona, hobbling on crutches, was intrigued by a horse that had gone unsold, Seeyouatmidnight is one of the leading contenders for Wednesday’s RSA Chase. The three-mile championship race for novice steeplechasers has been won in the past decade by subsequent Gold Cup heroes Denman, Bobs Worth and Lord Windermere.

Thomson is used to pressure; he played on the wing for Kelso when the Scottish Borders club were champions and his appearances for South of Scotland once included a match against the legendary All Blacks.

He hopes his horse’s Cheltenham form – Seeyouatmidnight was a more than creditable seventh in last year’s World Hurdle before beating RSA rival Blaklion at the Cotswolds track on New Year’s Day – will pay dividends against the likes of Jonjo O’Neill’s More Of That and Gordon Elliott’s highly-touted Irish raider No More Heroes.

In many respects, Thomson says the key to the build-up was his eight-year-old, who has struck up a good rapport with in-form North Yorkshire jockey Brian Hughes, missing Wetherby’s Towton Novices Chase – won by Blaklion – after a bad scope.

The ground was ‘bottomless’ and it enabled Thomson, based at Lambden in Berwickshire, to switch to Newcastle a fortnight ago where Seeyouatmidnight beat Sue Smith’s promising Smooth Stepper in a three-runner race.

It was the horse’s sixth win from 10 starts under National Hunt rules and left the gelding’s earnings tantalisingly short of £100,000 -– not bad for a horse that cost less than the initial £20,000 reserve at Doncaster.

“This is what everyone in racing dreams of,” says Thomson, whose family have long been steeped in hunting and point-to-point racing in the Scottish Borders. “Dreaming of finding a cheap horse and going to Cheltenham to take on the big boys with a chance.

“Very few are lucky enough to have that opportunity. It’s what everyone dreams of and it has been an amazing journey, not just with this horse but how the training side has taken off.

“It has been a lot of hard work, but we have very good staff and everyone pulls together.

“You can’t be afraid of anything. He might not be good enough, or something might be better than him. More Of That has won a World Hurdle (2014). He’s run very infrequently and we haven’t seen him for a long time.

“No More Heroes is very highly touted, but would he have won a World Hurdle last year? There are others; you respect any Nicky Henderson horse at Cheltenham and Blaklion did win the Towton.

“It was definitely the right decision not to go to Wetherby for the Towton and the Newcastle race at the end of last month was vital. He needed it.”

Thomson, whose stepson Tom is earning rave reviews for the Scotland Under-20 rugby union team, believes he has done eveything possible to prepare for the biggest day in his training career.

“Going to the World Hurdle last year, one reason was to let him see the sights and sounds of the Festival,” he explained.

“He’s also jumped round on Cheltenham on New Year’s Day. Though it was a different course to the one used for the RSA, it showed that he can handle the undulations. It’s exciting.”

The same applies to Hughes, who has a second successive century of winners in sight.

“Sandy knows him very well. He runs only a small operation, but he’s a good trainer and, like so many capable trainers in the North, all he’s lacking is ammunition,” said the jockey. “In my mind, nobody could have trained this horse any better.”

“The RSA will be tough. The Irish are very strong, but this horse stays very well, jumps soundly and ran well in the World Hurdle there last year on only his second run of the season.

“He’s had a much better preparation this time around and deserves to be in the field.”