Gulls sweat on Whitfield after his injury concern
Buckfastleigh jockey says its all about the ‘special relationship’ with her horse
GARY Johnson had his heart in his mouth when Ben Whitfield went down injured just before half time in their goalless draw at Boreham Wood on Saturday - but the Torquay United manager says the winger is a quick healer.
Ever-present Whitfield took a nasty knock on a knee in the final minute of the first 45, but came out for the second half and worked hard before being substituted in the 82nd and limping off.
After such a bad time with injuries, the loss of a quality player like Whitfield would be an extra blow for the Gulls, but Johnson was hoping the 25 year old would be OK to play at Maidenhead this evening.
Talking on Monday morning, before training, Johnson said: “Obviously Ben has been the mainstay of our team if you like - he is the only one who has played in every game. But he is a quick healer.
“It was a big old tackle he took but he did carry on so we just have to see how he is when he comes in today.”
If he is fit, Whitfield will once again take his place on the left side of a midfield that has played in front of both a back-four and a back-three in recent weeks as Johnson balances each 11 with the players available.
Dean Moxey and Gary Warren might be closest to a return next but Johnson, as usual, wasn’t about to let any secrets out of the bag before the team headed to Maidenhead.
With striker Danny Wright still maybe a month away from a return from his hamstring injury, the choice up front will be between the two that started against Boreham Wood Scott Boden and Billy Waters - and substitute Josh Umerah.
Having scored hatfuls of goals before Christmas, Torquay have now hit just nine in the 10 National League games in 2021. Someone needs to get the goals flowing again.
However, despite the four losses, four draws and two wins, Torquay have only conceded 10 goals with goalkeeper Shaun MacDonald and his at-times ad-hoc defence doing a pretty good job of keeping the ball out.
After the clean sheet at Boreham Wood, Johnson said: “We have found a little bit of our form but we gave the ball away too often and so we have got to get that better from the Boreham Wood game.”
As well as having eyes on what is happening at Maidenhead, Gulls fans will also be watching out for what second-placed Sutton United do at Chesterfield.
The leaders are now five points clear at the top of the table and have played a game less than the Gulls. However, Torquay have two games in hand on second-placed Hartlepool United and Wrexham in fourth - with both of those teams also in action tonight, at King’s Lynn Town and Eastleigh.
With a question mark hanging over what happens to Dover Athletic, who are refusing to play their games, Torquay could still lose the three points they picked up from the Kent side earlier in the season, while Sutton were still to play them.
But Johnson said: “Sutton have got a really tough run of games. They are all tough if you don’t get your own game right. We can’t look at our fixtures and say these are easy - they are the easy ones, they are the threepointers - because it doesn’t work like that.
“The only club like that when they were playing - and they weren’t too bad - was Dover. It’s a shame that they have sort of decided to up stumps, as it were, and we will have to wait and see what happens to them.”
Johnson continued: “I have given us a little bit of a focus of - can we be three points or more ahead of Sutton when we play them?
“That is really where our focus is and that is what we have got to try and achieve.
“But we mustn’t make it us and Sutton because you have got 10 other teams that can easily creep in there, if you are not careful. There are maybe more than 10 teams. You can’t just pick one team to be your rivals.”
THE daughter and granddaughter of a racehorse trainer, as a four-year old Bryony Frost would trek across Dartmoor on broken ponies no-one else wanted that she had bought with her pocket money.
Now 25, she’d still rather tumble off a horse than fall in love, and there’s no doubting her primary equine affection - Gold Cup hopeful Frodon.
As the Cheltenham Festoval kicksoff today, Racing has endured some tough headlines in recent days but in Frost, it has an eloquent spokesperson to show the alternative reality.
You take Frost as you find her, riding out the first lot at Paul Nicholls’s yard at dawn, over a lunchtime sandwich in the Manor House Inn or in the parade ring, where regardless of result she’s always in the winners’ enclosure when it comes to postrace quotes for headline hungry hacks.
“He’s a Pegasus, he’s got wings,” she said, breathlessly, after guiding Frodon to victory in the Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham two years ago, becoming the first woman jockey to win a Grade 1 race at the Festival.
You see Frost has already taken a hammer to racing’s glass ceiling, nearly four decades on from Caroline Beasley’s groundbreaking winning ride at jumps racing’s showpiece meeting.
In the days ahead that hammer could be a four-tonne wrecking ball.
“I just feel I come alive when I’m in a race, every emotion is heightened. When the race finishes it’s like my whole life is on pause until I’ve got the chance to go back out again, it’s hard to explain that connection until you’ve experienced it,” she said.
“I know that coming from my family I had a massive advantage in this sport, let’s be honest, it really helps when your dad has won the Grand National.
“However, the horse doesn’t care who your dad is, he likes you because the way you ride him, you need that special relationship for him to run for you and when you’ve got that you can be unstoppable.”
Which brings us to her partnership with Frodon, already fabled in this most storied of sports.
Even two years on from their Festival triumph, Frost admits she still can’t quite believe it.
The blur of the winning moment was followed by a famous return to the parade ring, stood up in her stirrups with her arms aloft, a giddying gladiatorial moment she still refers to as an ‘outer body experience’.
But in this sport you need to ride the highs and the lows with the same sturdy gait - days later she broke her collarbone while her shock victory with Frodon in Boxing Day’s King
George Chase was followed by allegations she’d been the victim of bullying from others within the sport of horse racing.
“You dream of winning a big race at Cheltenham, you don’t think it gets any bigger,” she added.
“The King George is up there with the Grand National and Gold Cup as one of our biggest races and even now it’s still hard to put into words. Actually I don’t think I’ll ever be able to.
“But now the Gold Cup is calling and he just loves Cheltenham. He’s a warrior, he knows what it’s like to be in a battle and he’ll relish it.”
The main plot to this year’s Gold Cup is all about Al Boum Photo’s crack at a third victory and a place in the pantheon of Prestbury Park legend.
But don’t forget the Frodon and Frost subplot, a story of love and triumph with a leading lady known to be a fan of not following the script.