Bridgwater delight as The Conditional edges out Kildisart
Trainer enjoys Festival win in Ultima Handicap Put The Kettle On holds on to claim the Arkle
David Bridgwater only has a small yard at Stow-on-the-wold but, after several near-misses in the Gold Cup with The Giant Bolster, he finally saddled his first Festival winner when The Conditional beat Kildisart in an all-cotswold finish to the Ultima Handicap yesterday. As a jockey, for his father Ken and Martin Pipe, Bridgwater rode five Festival winners but he explained he has always been lucky at the course.
“I know I haven’t had many bullets to fire but I wouldn’t run a horse here that hasn’t got a chance,” he said. “I’m not a social person, so I don’t come here for the social.”
The Conditional, who was picked up off the floor at the second last by Brendan Powell when he pecked badly, was runner-up in the Ladbrokes Trophy in December and that was clearly no fluke.
“I thought we were stuffed when he pecked but it has probably done us a favour,” he explained. “I didn’t want him to hit the front too soon.
“He’s a good horse. I was umming and ahhing about running in the RSA and I was half hoping we’d get balloted out of this because I thought he’d be placed in that race.”
Elsewhere, the day’s training honours went to Henry de Bromhead and Nicky Henderson, who both saddled doubles.
Before Honeysuckle took the mares’ race, de Bromhead was on the mark when Put The Kettle On, a 16-1 shot and regarded very much as the stable’s second string behind Notebook, beat Fakir d’oudairies one and a half lengths in the Racing
Post Arkle. The winner, ridden by Aidan Coleman, cost Kilkennybased Mary Dermody and her sons Michael and John €20,000 as a three-year-old.
“She’s a great owner and has had a series of mad mares,” recalled de Bromhead of her purchase, “and when this one came prancing into the ring at Goffs, standing on its hind-legs, I thought ‘this one’s for Mary’.”
The Arkle plan had begun to take shape when de Bromhead brought her over in November and she won a trial for the race over course and distance but, having not run since and with the more fashionable Notebook in the same stable, she had slipped under the radar.
But she and Coleman landed in front over the third last and from there she was always holding Fakir d’oudaries.
It did not take Nicky Henderson long to put the disappointment of Altior’s withdrawal from today’s Champion Chase behind him, when Shishkin overcame a number of inconveniences, including stepping over the legs of the fallen Elixir d’ainay at the second last, to beat Abacadabras by a head in the Sky Bet Supreme Hurdle.
It was Henderson’s first victory in the meeting’s opener since Altior took the prize in 2016 and he would have warmed to Nico de Boinville’s debrief that, in Shishkin, they may have found another.
After the debacle of last year’s National Hunt Chase, this year’s running – under new conditions designed to make it safer – was much more civilised and was won for a third time by Irish amateur Jamie Codd, who brought home the 12-1 shot Ravenhill two and a quarter lengths ahead of Lord Du Mesnil to get Gordon Elliott off the mark for the week.
Despite plenty of them finishing tired, all the horses left the course in one piece, while Richard Johnson was stood down for the day after bruising his hip in a fall from Brewin’upastorm in the Arkle. He is expected to ride today.