Party? Bryony was mucking out yesterday!
ACHIEVING the best result for a British female jockey in Grand National history might be seen as cause for celebration.
Not for Bryony Frost, however, who highlighted the daily grind of being a professional jumps jockey by returning to action on a far smaller stage than Aintree.
The 23-year- old, who finished fifth in Saturday’s £ 1million race on Milansbar, mucked out yesterday morning before travelling three hours to a low-key race at Plumpton.
Frost said she enjoyed a ‘mouthful of champagne’ with Milansbar’s owners at Aintree, before her father drove her a large part of the 200-mile journey back to Somerset.
Despite only getting home at 1am she was mucking out 10 horses in Paul Nicholls’ yard by eight o’clock.
‘There is no high glory,’ she explained to Sportsmail. ‘You have to get your elbows out.’
Her father Jimmy, who won the National in 1989 and is based in Devon, summed it up by saying: ‘There is no time to stop and think.’
Speaking about the aftermath of her National debut, Frost said: ‘I think we had a mouthful of champagne with Robert Bothway, Milansbar’s owner, and Neil King, his trainer, and then kicked on home. It’s life, you have got to keep moving forward. It’s our job.
‘I was up this morning, into work for eight, mucked out, rushed home, rushed to Tesco to get a load of sweets and cake for Neil’s staff so they’ll all be having some breakfast on Monday morning.
‘Now we’re travelling up to Plumpton to see what we can do. People say Sunday is the day of rest, but I haven’t found that one out yet.’
At Plumpton, Frost finished third on the Richard Rowe-trained Remember Forever, in a race that paid £3,314 to the winner — considerably less than the Grand National’s £500,000 first prize.
Frost’s fifth place in the National was the second-best result for a female jockey in the marathon race, behind Irish jockey Katie Walsh’s third on Seabass in 2012. It was a first attempt at the race for both Frost and her 11-year-old mount.
But despite being thrilled by the result, she candidly admitted to a hint of self-doubt about whether she could have achieved a top-three finish if she had pushed Milansbar a little harder.
After telling her father that she was kicking herself, she said: ‘When you have a horse running up the run-in with you, you think, “Could I have asked more of him?”
‘But to be fair, if I’d asked more of him, maybe he would have found Valentine’s (fence 25) too big.
‘So when you’re feeling them out there you have just got to do what is natural. Fifth, I will settle for that just fine.’
Frost was not the only jockey to take no time off for a party. Davy Russell, who triumphed in the National on Tiger Roll in his 14th attempt at the race, had five rides at Tramore on the south-east coast of Ireland yesterday.
The Irish jockey, 38, immediately returned to winning ways, taking the first two races, while Jack Kennedy, who finished third in the National on Bless the Wings, was also back racing.