Cut-price Harry is ready to rule
HE HAS won his last eight races in an unbeaten sequence extending back to November 2015 and is one of the hottest favourites of next week’s Cheltenham Festival.
But, while Harry Fry-trained Unowhatimeanharry now runs in the colours of multi-millionaire owner JP McManus, his bid to win Thursday’s Stayers’ Hurdle will be the culmination of a fairytale and unlikely rise through the jumping ranks.
Original trainer Helen Nelmes bought the modestly bred gelding after spotting him for sale in the small ads of Horse & Hound magazine. She then suffered the disappointment of seeing him sold after a financial dispute with his original owner.
That he ended up in Fry’s stable also involved an element of luck. ‘An email came through that Unowhatimeanharry was for sale,’ said the trainer. ‘It was the sort of email you normally delete but for whatever reason I had a couple of minutes to read through it.’
Fry thought he might have found the ideal horse to run on small local tracks for his new 40-strong racing club. But since winning his first race for Fry at Cheltenham, Unowhatimeanharry has shown form which has improved by more than three stone.
He landed his first Grade One race, and Fry’s first at the Festival, in the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle last year while this season he has proved a cut above every long-distance hurdler in Britain.
A breathing operation when he joined Fry is one possible reason why Unowhatimeanharry, bought by McManus after last season, has improved so much. Nelmes admits watching the gelding, who has won all his four Cheltenham races, with mixed feelings.
She said: ‘It was a sad day to lose him. He won his first bumper for us. I had no choice but to let him go. The heartwrenching thing was we thought there was a lot more there and were going to use a tongue tie (to help his breathing) the next time he ran, but the owner took him from under us.
‘It is painful to watch him now, but my claim to fame is that I found him. Harry is great. We have stayed good friends. It wasn’t his fault. If JP knew what we paid for him, he’d die!’
Fry, who also goes into Cheltenham armed with top novice hurdler Neon Wolf, said: ‘Last season was incredible and there was no guarantee he would progress any further. But he came out again and found that improvement and won first at Newbury and then a Grade One at Ascot.
‘We could not have dreamt he could reach this level when we started. He has run well wherever we have run him, but he has a love affair with Cheltenham.’ DON POLI has joined the list of Cheltenham Gold Cup absentees. The Gordon Elliotttrained gelding, third in last year’s race and a dual Festival winner, is injured and out for the season.
The race had already been stripped of its last two winners, Coneygree and Don Cossack, plus long-time favourite Thistlecrack.