The turf | 15 February 2018

Write a few books and you have to listen politely at parties as people who have never opened yours tell you, at some length: ‘I’ve always felt I had a book in me.’ Many things in life look easy until you have to knuckle down to it, hence the golfer Gary Player’s sardonic comment to someone who remarked on his good fortune: ‘Yes, and it’s strange how I’ve found the harder I practise, the luckier I get.’

Player’s remark came to mind after Jack Quinlan’s success in Saturday’s Betfair Hurdle at Newbury when he rode Amy Murphy’s Kalashnikov to a convincing victory in the Betfair Handicap Hurdle, the richest of its kind and the hottest contest yet this season. A month ago, after the pair won a Kempton chase with Mercian Prince, I wrote that the enthusiastic rookie trainer would be winning more races with Mercian Prince and with Kalashnikov and that Jack Quinlan, who rides schooling for most of the few Newmarket trainers with jumping horses, had talents beyond his high workrate that deserved more recognition. Not every piece of betting advice in this column bears fruit, but Mercian Prince won again a fortnight later at 7–2 and when the mud-spattered Quinlan brought Kalashnikov home a clear winner in the Betfair, it was at the satisfying starting price of 8–1.

Like this season’s great discovery Bryony Frost, Jack Quinlan is as interesting to talk to after a race as he is to watch in the saddle. He was quick to pay tribute to Amy Murphy and her father Paul, who owns Kalashnikov (and who had preregistered the horse’s name ready for when she had ‘a serious weapon’ in the stable). But he acknowledged that despite being quickly out of the gate his mount couldn’t go the early pace in the conditions and had to be slapped down the shoulder all the way.