WALKING ON AYR
Brando toughs it out for dream Gold Cup success
DON’T dismiss your dreams. Angie Bailey didn’t and ended up owning a William Hill Ayr Gold Cup winner in Brando. In the build up to Scotland’s biggest Flat race, Bailey had a dream containing the numbers two and eight. With Kevin Ryan-trained Brando No 2 on the racecard, picking stall No 8 in Thursday’s draw seemed the right thing to do.
So it proved in a race which continued the great run of horses at this season’s Western meeting starting from low numbered stalls.
Brando was the fourth winner of the Ayr Gold Cup this century to emerge from stall eight and the four-year-old’s win extended the excellent record of Ryan in the race.
The £200,000 sprint handicap is supposed to be one of the hardest races in the Flat racing calendar to win.
But for the Yorkshire trainer, it is becoming quite a habit. Brando was his fourth win in the last 10 years following Advanced (2007), Our Jonathan (2011) and Captain Ramius (2012).
In carrying 9st 10lb to a length and a quarter win from 4-1 favourite Growl, Brando produced the best weight carrying performance since Coastal Bluff defied the same burden 20 years ago.
There was additional joy for the Ryan family with winning jockey Tom Eaves being engaged to Ryan’s daughter Amy, a former jockey and apprentice champion in 2012.
Ryan, who also ran Flaming Spear (19th) and Terentum Star (23rd and last), said: ‘It’s very special for the owners. They’ve been coming here for years and are great friends of mine. Angie has always wanted to win this race.
‘Angie said to draw stall eight if his name comes out early enough. She picked the stall.
‘I always like to go middle to far side and all horses came out early enough for me to do that, so it’s worked out.’
The form of Brando, a son of Pivotal who cost 115,000gn when bought as a yearling, has moved to a different level this summer.
His last run had been a ninth place finish to Mecca’s Angel in the Group One Nunthorpe Stakes at York last month.
He had shown his capabilities in big sprint handicaps in June when a head second to Outback Traveller in the Wokingham Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Eaves added: ‘He was the class horse in the race, but he needed a bit of luck. It all worked out lovely and it’s great to ride the Ayr Gold Cup winner. It’s the big handicap we want to win up here.’
Eaves led a furlong out on Brando and never looked like being overhauled by well-backed Richard Fahey-trained Growl.
With Mick Easterbytrained Hoof It, a gelding part-owned by golfer Lee Westwood, next home, the first three all started from single-figure starting stalls.
G Force (11) in fourth was the first double-digit stall starter home.
The draw bias had also shown in the earlier Silver Cup when 20-1 shot Roudee, trained by Tom Dascombe at the Cheshire stable built by ex-England striker Michael Owen and ridden by Richard Kingscote, also started from stall eight and beat Get Knotted, who was in stall nine, by half a length.
Meanwhile, the red and yellow colours of owner Peter Ridgers
carried to success in the 2009 Ayr Gold Cup by Jimmy Styles were sported to an impressive victory by Harry Angel in the Group Two Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury.
After the colt’s clear two-and-a-half length victory from Perfect Angel, trainer Clive Cox did not hide the high expectations he has for his winner.
Cox has had a series of speedy top-class performers including this year’s King’s Stand Stakes scorer Profitable and he believes he has another quality sprinter in his stable in Adam Kirby-ridden Harry Angel, who he sees as a candidate for the six-furlong Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot next year.
Cox said: ‘I am just pleased everyone has had the chance to see what we have had the privilege of watching at home. He is potentially very good and one to keep us warm through the winter.’