TINGLE ALL THE WAY FOR FROST
BRYONY FROST went from the witness box to the winner’s enclosure with a stirring victory aboard 12-1 Greaneteen in the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown Park.
Punters sent Irish challenger Chacun Pour Soi, ridden by Frost’s boyfriend Patrick Mullins, off the 8-13 hotpot for the Betfair-sponsored Grade 1 test.
But it was Frost, who on Wednesday gave a tearful testimony in her bullying case against fellow rider Robbie Dunne – the hearing concludes at British Horseracing Authority headquarters next week – and boss Paul Nicholls’ upwardly mobile seven-year-old Greaneteen who came out on top.
Returning from the fiveand-a-half-length triumph from stablemate Hitman, Frost received a rapturous three cheers – a fourth was added for good measure from the sellout crowd.
Above the tumult rose a shout from a female racegoer, who hollered: “We support you Bryony – you’re doing a great job!”
Gathering composure, the 26-year-old beamed: “I can’t tell you what it means. I’m nearly in tears – to feel the support of everybody here is huge.
“The most blissful place you can be is on the back of horses like him – there’s no better place to be when you’re 100 percent gunning with him and he’s gunning with you.”
A proud Nicholls, back after being confined to Ditcheat for 10 days with Covid, said of his protege: “She’s been with us since she was pony racing with [Nicholls’ daughter] Megan, and she’s done nothing but improve and improve.
“It has been a difficult week for her and she has handled it well.
“I don’t think any of us would like to be in that position, but to come back here and ride a Grade 1 winner here today?
“That says everything about her and what a professional she is, so full marks to her.
Asked if he had “put an arm round” Frost during her travails, the champion trainer joked: “I
think Paddy Mullins has been doing that – not me!”
While Chacun Pour Soi, 4-1 for Cheltenham’s Queen Mother Champion Chase next March at the start of trading yesterday, can be backed at three times those odds, Greaneteen, beaten two lengths in fourth behind Put The Kettle On this year, is, from 12-1, as short as 5-1.
“The Champion Chase will be his target,” added Nicholls.
“He was beat two lengths last year and I know he has improved more than that.”
SNOW LEOPARDESS clung on for a nose margin in the Unibet Becher Chase at Aintree and is 25-1 for the Randox Grand National on April 9.