Pacha does it again
An unexpected win for young jockey Harriet Tucker on Pacha Du Polder gives Paul Nicholls a fourth victory in the Foxhunter Chase
Paul Nicholls’ star returns to claim Foxhunter glory
WINNING the biggest prize in your sport on only your second appearance under Rules is far-fetched, but to do so with a shoulder half-dislocated and near useless is outrageous.
That is what 22-year-old Harriet Tucker achieved in the seven or so minutes it took to run the St James’s Place Foxhunter Chase at the Festival on Friday. Her mount, the Paul Nichollstrained Pacha Du Polder, was an unconsidered 25-1 chance, despite being the defending champion, and that was as much due to the jockey’s inexperience as the pair’s lacklustre display at Doncaster the previous month — Tucker’s debut under Rules.
Tucker arrived at Cheltenham on the back of five straight point-to-point wins, the most recent only five days earlier, but the rider certainly did not entertain any ambitions.
“I was thinking he wouldn’t like the ground and so to get round and finish in the first 10 would be amazing,” she said.
Pacha Du Polder, from looking likely to finish among the mid-field pack, closed in on the leaders from the third last. While the horse was finding reserves to claw back his rivals, his rider faced another battle — her right shoulder began to dislocate.
A flailing waft of the whip on the run-in persuaded Tucker that the limb was near useless and so she pushed, shoved and nudged her way past Top Wood on the climb to the line to win by a neck.
Tucker brushed off the shoulder issue in that matter-offact way that comes as second nature to folk who fall off horses “for pleasure”.
“It all started last season after a bad fall,” she said. “I thought it was just a twinge. I’d been having physio and I thought it had been getting better. The shoulder only half-dislocates and usually I can get it to go straight back in, although this time I couldn’t.”
A CREME EGG BET
TUCKER, a graduate of the
Wylye Valley branch of the Pony Club, works as a stable lass for Paul Nicholls. She divides her time between her stable duties — among horses in her care is the smart chaser Present Man — and riding out point-to-pointers trained by Rose Loxton, Nicholls’ assistant head girl.
Two of Tucker’s pointing wins this season came via the Loxtontrained Caid Du Berlais, whose fifth in Friday’s Foxhunter Chase yielded a tasty bonus.
“I had a bet with one of the girls in the yard — 20 creme eggs — that Caid Du Berlais would beat [the Nicholls-trained] Wonderful Charm,” Tucker revealed, and she is no stranger to successful predictions. “I remember when I was young, watching racing on TV with my nan and saying, ‘I’m going to do that one day, I’m going to be a jockey’.”