Sealed with a kiss! Bridget’s another Festival heroine
THE Cheltenham Festival is no place for faint hearts. That cruel gradient. Those brave horses and exhausted jockeys. And such exhilarating danger breeds strong bonds from one rider to the next. But not in living memory has the mutual affection been expressed quite so exuberantly as the kiss between Bridget Andrews and Harry Skelton. Andrews had just become the second woman professional jockey to win at the Festival, on 33-1 outsider Mohaayed, when her boyfriend Harry pulled up and landed a smacker on her. Watching on were his brother Dan, the horse’s trainer, and their father, Nick, the Olympic champion showjumper. Both Dan and Nick were in tears. The old man’s lower lip had trembled when he was presented with his gold medal in Rio a couple of summers ago. This was waterworks on a larger scale. It has been a fine week for women jockeys: winners through Lizzie Kelly, Katie Walsh and then Andrews, before Harriet Tucker rounded off the tally with a splendid victory on 25-1 Pacha Du Polder in the St James’ Place Foxhunter, remarkably popping back her dislocated shoulder as she did so. Tucker said: ‘My shoulder half dislocates when I reach it too high. Coming up to the second last it half dislocated. And I couldn’t push it back in so I couldn’t slap him on the shoulder to get him to go forwards. I was pushing and praying that no one was going to beat me because I couldn’t hit him any more with my right hand. I had to keep pushing and screaming at him and we got there.’ Andrews’ win in the County Hurdle contained its own drama, with boyfriend Harry playing his role. ‘He shouted to me, “Steady Bridge!” He was telling me to take a pull,’ revealed Andrews later. The winning horse could have been Harry’s, but because of the heavy ground he opted instead for Spirit of the games, which dead-heated for fifth. Only 14 times have women won in Cheltenham’s history stretching back to 1860, and exactly half of those successes have come in the last two years. It may not be a revolution, but could be an important evolution. One of the female victors was Andrews’s amateur rider big sister Gina, who won last year’s Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Chase on Domesday Book. As Dan Skelton said: ‘It is about time we stopped talking about lady jockeys and just called them jockeys.’ Andrews, smiling in near disbelief at her triumph, revealed her first words were to say sorry to Harry. The Warwickshire-based pair have been going out for seven years, and Nick Skelton thinks it’s time they made the partnership permanent. He said: ‘It is a team effort and Bridget is part of the family. With a bit of luck Harry will marry her if he has got any sense.’ Harry Skelton was taken to hospital for an assessment after his horse North Hill Harvey died following a fall in the Grand Annual Chase. Dresden and Some Plan were also fatalities in the race. Sandsend also died yesterday, taking the number of deaths at the Festival to six. The British Horseracing Authority are to review the circumstances surrounding the deaths.