Harrington marches in as top lady

AS the daughter of a brigadier-general who survived Passchendaele, Jessica Harrington has never dodged bullets in her line of fire.

And when she trains the force of her equine Moone military in the direction of Cheltenham, it is wise to be wary for Harrington often finds the target. She did so again yesterday.

Not only that but when Supasundae scooted clear under Robbie Power in the Coral Cup, Harrington became the most successful lady trainer in the history of the Cheltenham Festival.

Not one for stuffy sentiment, the former Olympian three-day eventer glowed with a professional pride at eclipsing Jenny Pitman and moving to the ninewinner mark.

‘I know Jenny well. My late husband Johnny sourced horses for her. It’s lovely to get a winner here again,’ Harrington (below) said.

Pitman and Harrington are both 70 but while the former retired from training in 1999 to concentrate on writing books, Harrington still marches to an intensely active beat.

You suspect her forebears, who included Uncle Harry with a wooden foot and her father Frizz Fowler, who won a silver medal for polo at the 1936 Olympics, would approve.

The timing of Pitman’s exit from the training ranks after winning two Gold Cups and two Grand Nationals is noteworthy as it marked the year when Harrington first won at the Festival.

‘It was Space Trucker, in the last race of the last millennium, which was nice,’ she recalled.

Without prompting, she rattled off her other subsequent winners, Moscow Flyer (three), Spirit Leader, Cork All Star and Bostons Angel, her face lighting up with a smile as warm as the day itself.

‘I remember them all; you have too because this is such a difficult place to get a winner. Every race is competitive,’ she said.

The Coral Cup is an example of the cut-throat nature of Festival with 26 runners going at a helter-skelter lick.

Having his third run at the Festival, Supasundae was always in the van under Robbie Power and kicked on from the front to keep his pursers, headed by Taquin Du Seuil, by a snug two lengths. Had they kept going for another half a mile, you suspect nothing would have passed the 16/1 shot.

This was Power’s first Festival win in six years and he joked about ‘forgetting what it was like.’

‘He jumped the first a bit slow but after that I got a lovely run the whole way,’ said Power.

‘He’s been running on heavy ground in Ireland all winter, and I was sure he would improve for better ground, and that’s how it worked out.

‘He has travelled over to give Sizing John a bit of company — he’s best mates with him,’ he added.

‘It’s great to get one winner, and fingers crossed we get another.’ Supasundae is owned by Ann and Alan Potts, and runs in the same colours as Sizing John, the Gold Cup contender — both were formerly trained by Henry de Bromhead who might have had cause to be wistful but for Special Tiara’s day of deliverance in the Champion Chase. The Harrington duo are stabled next door to one another at home and ‘get anxious’, according to their trainer, if one of them goes missing. At Cheltenham, they are sharing a companion box so they can keep an eye on each other. Harrington had hopes of landing a double but Someday, her runner in the Champion Bumper, was ruled out by the Cheltenham stewards on health grounds. Harrington gave the impression she wasn’t best pleased at the late call as she wouldn’t dare run a horse that wasn’t fit to do itself justice. Even so, it was still some day for this formidable trainer.

‘I remember all of them, it’s lovely to get a winner here’