Essex owner/trainer Nigel Padfield is hoping Padjoes Legacy can prove best when running at Cheltenham’s evening hunters’ chase meeting on Friday.
Padfield’s nine-year-old runs in the Cheltenham Intermediate Hunters’ Chase (5.10) having finished third in it last year. Ridden by Gina Andrews on that occasion, he was upsides at the last before finishing four-and-three-quarters of a length behind winner Iskandar Pecos.
Padfield (pictured above) says: “That was definitely his best run, but when you’ve got Gina Andrews on your back you go. Unfortunately Gina is not available this time because she’s riding one from her yard [Mumbo Jumbo], so Zak Baker is riding him. Zak’s won on the horse twice before and he seems to go well for him.”
Nigel Padfield (right) pictured chatting with Simon Marriage at Cheltenham last year (Ce)
Padjoes Legacy subsequently finished a close second to Learntalot (who holds an entry in Cheltenham’s 5.45 on Friday) at Stratford’s evening meeting, while this season he won at High Easter and was a good second to the Nick Wright-trained Clashhill at Horseheath. Clashhill is unbeaten in four point-to-point outings, his victories including one over Mumbo Jumbo at Guilsborough, and Padfield says: “We finished closer to Clashhill [beaten a neck] than any other horse has managed this season, and we were first time out whereas Clashhill had had a run.
Padjoes Legacy (left, Gina Andrews) upsides winner Iskandar Pecos (right, Huw Edwards) and Latenightrumble (Jack Andrews) in last year's intermediate hunters' chase at Cheltenham (Ce)
“Friday’s race looks typically hot and we might be a little bit outclassed, but I thought the same thing last year and the ground doesn’t seem to make much difference to him.”
Cheltenham’s card throws up its usual array of mouthwatering races for fans of point-to-pointing, and the intermediate race is but one example. Sixteen horses have been entered for that contest, including the progressive pair of Crawter and Douglas Longbottom, who are each chasing four-timers, and talented Glenmount, who runs for the 360 Racing Club headed by Point-to-Point Authority chief executive Paul Miller.
Previous winners are a feature of the card, which opens with a two-miler (4.35) won last year by A Jet Of Our Own who can line up again, but who also holds an entry in the two-and-a-half miler (8.05) which concludes the meeting. Rebel Dawn Rising, who won the two-and-a-half miler 12 months’ ago also holds entries in the contests which book-end the card.
Freddy Philipson-Stow salutes the crowd after winning on A Jet Of Our Own last year (Ce)
Fairly Famous is another winner from the 2024 fixture who is set to line up again. He is entered in the Junior Jumpers Hunters’ Chase (5.45) and the Open Hunters’ Chase (6.20) which is being run in memory of former racing journalist and pundit Jonathan Neesom. If lining up in the last-named contest he could face recent Randox Foxhunters’ Chase winner Gracchus De Balme, although that horse is also entered in the two-and-a-half miler.
Latenightfumble, who won at the meeting three years ago, was then put in foal and has returned to racing this season, is among entries for the mares’ race (6.55) in which possible rivals include Cullin Hills, the champion point-to-pointer from the 2022/23 season.
Go Go Geronimo, who was a neck second to Latenightfumble in that Cheltenham race, is among a big field of entries for the four-miler (7.30). Other contenders include Law Of Gold, who won it in 2023, and D’Jango, who was third last year and recently ran a fine race when second in the Lady Dudley Cup at Chaddesley Corbett.