Stratford played second fiddle to Champions Day At Ascot yesterday, but on a day to showcase the best the Flat can offer, there was plenty to get your teeth into at our penultimate fixture of 2025.
Ground conditions at home are holding back a flush of runners, with small fields occurring regularly even at well-watered summer courses. The long hot summer we’ve all enjoyed has its own repercussions for the sport, but this didn’t prevent Alistair Ralph from capitalizing on the opportunity to raise his seasonal total to 11 winners, courtesy of a double.
In stark contrast to the card at Auteuil, host to another double-up trainer in Dominic Bressou, Ralph’s take-home was a meagre £8,940, Bressou’s a splendid £79,941, but you work with the talent you have. In 11 year old Mix of Clover, he has a game and deserving winner of the 2m 5f Mid-Warwickshire Cleaning Supplies Handicap Chase, a 5 runner field that put the gelding back in the winners’ enclosure a year from his last visit there. No small success meantime though; Mix of Clover won twice last year, had been beaten a neck here by Kaproyale in May ’24, and has been running up to his rating all summer. Tom Broughton was in the plate to guide the winner home from Juggernaut, taking it up two out and making the best of his way home to score by 3 3/4l.
An overdue win after two runner-up berths for Prince de Juillet in the concluding 2m6f handicap hurdle ended the day satisfactorily for Ralph, Toby McCain Mitchell riding the winner to a 4l margin over Lady Henrietta.
The day began with one of those quirky races for which Stratford must be commended for innovation in race planning: a handicap hurdle for lady amateur riders, in which seven of the 11 runners were mounted by amateurs – an entertaining 60th birthday present for race sponsor Nigel Reeve, surrounded by a gaggle of aspirant lady jockeys.
Fergal O’Brien ran two in the race, and it was his less-fancied runner, Zenato, ridden by daughter Fern, who prevailed, after a titanic struggle with runner-up and arch-rival across the Withington valley where they eye each other’s gallops, Kim Bailey and Mat Nichol’s Gerard Mentor, who went down by a neck in the closest finish of the afternoon. It was just a 26th winner of the summer for O’Brien, who has a higher quality of animal nowadays after making his reputation with summer horses a few years back. Not so Fern O’Brien, this her sixth winner from just 20 rides, a noteworthy 30% strike rate.
O’Brien can consider himself unlucky not to have enjoyed a double after Absolutely Doyen hacked up for Paul Nicholls and Freddie Gingell in the Diesel Technic 10 Year Anniversary ‘National Hunt’ Maiden Hurdle. The Irish pointer has been knocking on the door recently, but was switched to Ditcheat 10 days ago. Nicholls plays a prominent role in the new Champions: Full Gallop docuseries, which launched earlier on the week.
7lb claimer Chad Bament rode a clever race in the 2m mares handicap hurdle on Getmetothemoon to give Anthony Honeyball some compensation for his second-placed finish with Juggernaut to Mix of Clover 30 minutes earlier. Racing handily, he jumped his way into contention over leader and favourite Seeyouinmydreams to deny Nicholls a second winner, the distance 2 1/4l.
Basilette made it fifth time lucky at Stratford when finally getting her head in front in the 2m Jaxon Daiquiri’s First Year Handicap Hurdle. Form figures reading 4232 in previous runs here had spelt a summer of frustration for trainer Seamus Mullins, but persistence will out. 3lb claimer Daniel Samson made no mistake this time around to win by 2 1/4l.
Tedwin Hills put a series of changes of stable behind him to win for the first time in two years in the second chase of the day, a handicap over 2m6f. The winner was prominent from the off, led after the third, and never troubled favourite backers thereafter, 8 1/2l to the good at the line for James Bowen and Warren Greatrex.
