Campbell’s win will stay with us all. Forever.
Scots trainer Lucinda’s pride for tragic pair as she heads to Cheltenham
GONE. But never, ever forgotten. When Lucinda Russell returns to Cheltenham next week for the annual pilgrimage to the Festival, the memories of two lost heroes will come flooding back.
While emotional, her over-riding feeling will be pride. It grows a little bit inside Russell and partner Peter Scudamore on each visit since the incredible successes of her charge Brindisi Breeze and jockey Campbell Gillies seven years ago.
That joy, tragically, turned to the excruciating pain within six months when both horse and rider lost their lives in separate freak accidents.
In March 2012, Brindisi Breeze and Gillies sent Scotland wild with delight as they famously won the Albert Bartlett Novices Hurdle.
It was a first Festival win for Russell and a first for Gillies, yet the time to enjoy the moment together was not long.
Two months after his win, Brindisi Breeze broke from the yard. He jumped his way across two fields to get to a main road and was horribly mown down.
The pain was still raw when Gillies agreed to go on a holiday with his friends to Corfu. On the first night of the trip, the 21-year-old jumped into the swimming pool at his hotel and never resurfaced.
The agony will never go. Russell has stated that she’d swap every winner she’s ever trained since to have him back but she and Scudamore will never let the memories go.
For as long as they work, Gillies and Brindisi Breeze will stay part of their team. Legends whose efforts will never be allowed to fade away.
Pride will burst from them as they walk back into Cheltenham on Tuesday morning and Russell said: “That pride just gets stronger. It’s not just at Cheltenham time. We talk about them all of the time.
“It makes us even prouder about what we did together. There was a naivety about the whole thing. We had this great horse and it was fantastic. The Scottish jockey, the Scottish trainer and we were up against a formidable opponent (Boston Bob) and their legend just gets greater.”
Scudamore echoed Russell’s heartfelt sentiments as he said: “We are conscious of not forgetting about what they did. It’s that immense pride Luce mentions.
“The commentary was so good. Jon Hunt said, ‘Campbell’s Scottish pride’. It was a special moment.
“Campbell was a fabulous talent. It was a privilege to be involved with him. It will stay with us all, what they both did. Always.”
With time having turned their grief to pride, Russell and Scudamore go back to Prestbury Park for the biggest week of the racing calendar with fresh horses trying to make new memories.
Once Ayr and Musselburgh are finished, focus will switch to Cheltenham and the pair will again attempt to battle against big guns.
In jumps racing these days, the power, and the finance, is not in the north. While Ireland and England’s big hitters have bags of ammunition to fire, the numbers going south on the M6 are sparse.
It doesn’t frustrate Russell who is
determined to hunt out the new stars and take on the elite.
Russell said: “Voix D’Eau will go. His owners Jimmy Fyffe and Gerry McGladery like having runners at the big meetings and I also hope Highland Hunter can get into the Albert Bartlett.”
Russell may be one of very few who can say they have trained a Festival and a Grand National winner in One for Arthur but that’s no reason to rest on laurels.
She said: “I don’t want to be that person where someone says, ‘Oh, she was a nice trainer and won the Grand National, but that was it’. It makes you want even more.”