Queen Lizzie
Kelly banishes her Gold Cup demons with first winner
Lizzie Kelly stood in the Cheltenham winner’s enclosure for the first time and recalled a simpler time in her career. “Someone said to me once: ‘All Cheltenham is is tips, tickets and disappointments’. And I thought – Oh, you heathen, how could you think something so beautiful is so desperate?”
Kelly found out 12 months ago what the cynic meant, when she ended up “crying on the weighingroom floor” after picking the wrong horse to ride in a big hurdle race, and falling off Tea For Two in the Gold Cup.
“Well, I knew exactly what they meant last year, by the end of the week,” she said yesterday after winning the Ultima Handicap Chase by a neck on the 5-1 favourite Coo Star Sivola.
That victory for her stepfather, Nick Williams, was pure redemption. Kelly has been overshadowed in the women’s weighing room this season by Bryony Frost, but was the first female rider to win a Grade One race – on Tea For Two.
“It takes quite a lot to pick yourself back up again, and I had quite a lot of mental issues coming into this Festival,” she told us. “I could not stop thinking about how I picked the wrong horse [last year]. Not the Gold Cup, because mistakes are made in chasing, so you live with that. But picking the wrong horse when you know the horses so well from home is a real confidence knock.”
In the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle 12 months ago, Kelly opted for Diable De Sivola (fifth) ahead of Flying Tiger, who won at 33-1 for Richard Johnson. Jockeys do this all the time – and the winner was a 33-1 shot, after all – but Kelly fell into a spiral.
She says: “We hadn’t had a Cheltenham Festival winner for what, 15 years? I thought, well, in 15 years I’m not going to be here. That was tough. Obviously, again this season, I had two to pick from in the Fred Winter, and I thought – I don’t know whether I can do this. This is horrendous.
“If [AP] Mccoy picks the wrong horse it doesn’t matter. He’s got nine other rides that year [at the Festival]. That was my one opportunity. I can’t believe I’ve been so lucky to be able to right that wrong so quickly.
“I’ve been so anti-cheltenham Festival, ever since, which I’ll have to take back. It’s the way jockeys are almost categorised. ‘Did you win at the Cheltenham Festival?’ To have done it when I’ve made peace with the fact that I wouldn’t do it, last year, is an incredible feeling.”
To hear her say she thought her chance had gone for ever is to see how confidence can rise and fall in her precarious trade. Frost’s emergence has helped her cope.
She said here: “It was great, nobody asking for an autograph, nobody knocking on the door, it was fantastic. Last year, there was a lot of press, a lot of press. I had people ringing me asking if they could take photographs of the horse [Tea For Two] on the Friday morning [Gold Cup day]. Well, no, of course you can’t. What? Really? It was constant.”
This time, she sought professional help from the acclaimed sports psychologist Michael Caulfield. She remembers “going back into another Festival and thinking – what happens if I mess this up? What happens if I get this wrong? In the end, I just threw everything down and thought – this is ridiculous, I have to sort something out, and went to see Michael Caulfield. I thought it was only right for the people I ride for and the team at home that I sorted myself out and got everything rolling and just chill.
“He said to me: ‘Just think about things in steps. When do you stop worrying?’ I said – normally when you jump off and get going because it’s the race then. He said – ‘Right, well, the first step is get all your gear on and go out into the paddock. The second step is get on the horse. The third step – start.’ It’s as simple as one-two-three, it turns out.
“It was self-doubt. That’s the last
‘It takes quite a lot to pick yourself up again – I had quite a lot of mental issues’
thing you need when you’ve got good rides and someone in the back of your head is saying – you were rubbish last year.”
Coo Star Sivola’s win featured a long slog up the run-in, with Shantou Flyer chasing. Kelly said: “I actually thought to myself – oh, I’m being quite quiet. I’m actually a big shouter. I like shouting, and I think it really helps, so I did. But I couldn’t believe how far it was. It’s never looked that far. I’ve ridden a good few winners here and it felt a very long way.”
In the Fred Winter Handicap Hurdle today, Kelly has chosen Esprit De Somoza, leaving her brother, Chester Williams, to ride Mercenaire (“I don’t mind if my brother beats me”).
She has already learnt the lesson: “There’s no point being negative or sitting in a dark room saying – this is awful, I’m going to be s---.”