If there was a prize for the most genuine and willing thoroughbred then recent Warwick hunter chase winner D’Jango would be a contender.
“In all my years of looking after horses this is the nicest,” says trainer Victoria Collins (pictured above on D'Jango). “He never turns a hair.”
With her partner Oliver Dale being a master of the North Cotswold Hunt, Collins’s point-to-pointers are no strangers to a day following hounds, and while some prove more suited to the role than others, D’Jango took to it as if he had been born in kennels. Collins says: “The first time I sat on him at the meet he loved it. The hounds came round him and he was a true gentleman. He loved being around them.”
Not that the AQPS-bred 11-year-old, who was born and raised in France, has drifted through a cushy life. According to France Galop’s website he began racing as a four-year-old and ran 33 times in his homeland over five seasons, winning three races and picking up prize money a further 16 times. He won a Gr.3 chase at Auteuil and returned there for unsuccessful attempts on the famous Gr.1 Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris and the Prix la Haye Jousselin.
Then he got really busy. Sold into David Pipe’s yard, D’Jango kept galloping, running in 31 races over two seasons and adding handicap chase wins at Warwick and Lingfield to his CV, along with a number of placings.
Despite that busy schedule D’Jango remained true to his nature. Amateur jockey Martin McIntyre, a regular competitor on Britain’s point-to-point circuit and a work rider at Pipe’s yard says: “In the time he was here I rode him all of . . . once. He was the yard’s happy hack, the horse that anyone could ride.”
After 64 races for licensed trainers most horses could be forgiven for saving a bit for themselves, but it seems that is not D’Jango’s way. Offered for sale at Doncaster in October, he was bought by current owner Sarah Dawson and sent to Collins’s Gloucestershire stable.
Dawson says: “He was fit, and given his age we decided to press on and run him. The only thing that concerned us was his eating habits. All he eats is carrots and hay. You can give him a bowl of feed at night and it is untouched in the morning.”
Collins confirms that saying: “The only time he eats up is after a day’s hunting. He’s 16.1hh and quite a fine horse with a very small girth.”
Happy with hounds, D'Jango with his new best friends (pic by Sarah Dawson)
Aha, so we can say of this exemplary thoroughbred that he is a fussy or even a non-eater . . . but it doesn’t stop him.
In January he ran in the first hunter chase of the season and nearly pulled off a notable upset when finishing a close second at an SP of 66/1 to the progressive young mare Regatta De Blanc. He then went to Warwick, ridden once again by Immy Robinson, and this time downed the odds-on shot Tea Clipper, doing his best work at the finish when many horses would be crying enough. Tea Clipper let the form down when beaten at Ludlow yesterday, but no one is going to dismiss D’Jango lightly the next time he runs.
That is set to be on Saturday week in Haydock’s valuable Walrus Hunters’ Chase. Likely opposition includes last year’s winner Famous Clermont from Chris Barber’s yard and the Hannah Roach-trained Time Leader, so on paper a tough assignment, but D’Jango is certain to be head down and giving it his all on Haydock’s long run-in.
He has yet to prove he can become the best hunter chaser, but he might just be the most genuine.