Determined force

Racing for me is all about hope, although the Irish training wizard Mick O’Toole did once declare, ‘Racing is a game of make-believe. If people didn’t have horses they thought were better than they really were, National Hunt racing would collapse.’

Two weeks ago, on a snowy morning in Stow-on-the-Wold, I was trying to keep up with David Bridgwater, as much of an action man as a trainer as he was when pumping home winners in the saddle. We bumped up to the gallops with a group of owners to watch wife Lucy, jockey Tommy Phelan and conditional Jake Hodson put a few of the inmates of Wyck Hill Farm through their paces up the stiff all-weather gallop. ‘This used to be a dirty old farm,’ said Bridgy typically. ‘Now it’s a dirty old farm with gallops. It’s only four furlongs but it’s an effing long way when you fall off at the bottom and have to chase the bastards home.’ Then it was back to the yard to snatch a few words as the trainer fielded calls on his mobile, put a couple of horses on the walker and hosed down the legs of two others as hens scuttled around the stone farmyard and hopeful sparrows fought for scraps in the barn.

‘He’s always the same,’ said his mother Mary, the stable secretary, as we warmed our hands around a much-needed cup of coffee. ‘I can ring him at eight o’clock at night and he’ll sound really happy. I’ll say, “Where are you?” and he’ll say, “I’m out on the gallops with the tractor.”’ She remembers, too, a pre-teen Bridgy building a huge steeplechase fence to tackle with his grey pony. As he approached it they couldn’t see pony or rider and, sure enough, it was Bridgy who came soaring over the fence, his mount remaining on the other side.