Champion duo sign off in style

Martin Pipe and Tony McCoy signed off for the 2001/2 season in the only way they know how as the champion trainer-and-jockey team struck with 14-1 chance Bounce Back in the £125,000 Attheraces Gold Cup at Sandown today.

The six-year-old gelding put some disappointing efforts this season well behind him as he led home a one-two for his champion trainer, defeating 66-1 shot Dark Stranger by eight lengths.

The runner-up set a testing gallop under Irish conditional jockey Danny Howard and looked like he would prove a tough nut to crack when still five lengths clear over the third-last fence.

But McCoy, riding the 289th and final winner of his record-breaking campaign, gradually eased closer to the leader and took up the running before the last.

Well-backed 11-4 favourite Frenchman`s Creek stayed on to finish fourth with Ad Hoc (6-1) just keeping Iris Bleu _ another of Pipe`s six-strong raiding party _ out of the placings.

Only seven days ago, McCoy had picked the 'wrong one' from another Pipe squadron when Take Control took the Gala Casinos Daily Record Scottish Grand National after the champion had elected to ride Cyfor Malta.

But there was no mistake this time although McCoy admitted it had been hard to choose which of the stable`s sextet to ride.

'It was almost impossible,' he said. 'All you can do is go through the form book and hope you get it right. It doesn`t always work!

'He was unexposed over fences and capable of winning a big race like this.

'Today was the best he has ever jumped, I don`t know whether it was the course or the going or Jonathan Lower`s work, but it was brilliant.

'He has always had a lot of potential but hadn`t got it together on the track.'

Pipe said that he thought the marathon three miles and five furlong trip had brought the best out of his charge.

'I did have him entered in the Grand National so I thought he would stay,' he said.

'He has always had stacks of ability and Tony gave him a peach of a ride.

'He has done a lot of loose schooling this week and jumped nicely.'

Paul Carberry, who rode Frenchman`s Creek with such aplomb to win at the Cheltenham Festival, was unable to repeat the result.

'He just flattened out,' the jockey reported. 'I thought he was going to pick them up but he couldn`t.'

Hughie Morrison, Frenchman`s Creek`s trainer, said: 'He`s run a good honest race, but these handicaps are about who`s best on the day and those two were better than us.

'I knew he`d run well, but it is a different kind of racing at this time of year, you have got to be up with the pace. Good ground now is different to good ground at Cheltenham, which is a fairer track. It is less easy to ride a waiting race on this track.'

Morrison has lofty ambitions for the gelding.

'The way he won at Cheltenham there is no reason why he wouldn`t deserve a place in the Gold Cup,' he said. 'He`srated 148 now and I`m not a believer in running decent horses continuously in handicaps as I think it breaks them.'

Pipe and McCoy, who were both formally presented with their championship titles were completing a double on the day having taken the opener with It Takes Time, owned by leading patron and champion owner David Johnson.

McCoy was able to reflect upon his amazing season, and will now be taking a brief holiday _ on a day where there is no racing!

'I`m giving myself a day off tomorrow,' he smiled. 'I`ll be back at Plumpton on Monday, I wouldn`t have it any other way.

'When you`re riding winners you don`t want to stop and a day off will keep me fresh!

'I know it`s possible to ride even more than the 289 I have had this season. It will be hard but it`s not impossible.'

Away from the title-topping team, Cenkos showed remarkable durability to take the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Celebration Chase.

Just 14 days after finishing fifth in the valuable Nakayama Grand Jump in Japan, the Paul Nicholls-trained gelding turned in an amazing effort to win this #75,000 contest in clear-cut fashion.

Sent into the lead by Barry Geraghty at the third fence, the 8-1 shot kept pulling out more to beat Flagship Uberalles by 14 lengths with another six lengths back to third-home Edredon Bleu.

Nicholls was already mapping out next season`s campaign, which will be geared towards a tilt at the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, the race in which he finished fourth behind Flagship Uberalles earlier this season.

Coral make him a 12-1 chance in their long-range ante-post book behind favourite Moscow Flyer at 9-2 -PA