Cheltenham Fri, 14th Mar, 2025  Poniros He’s by Golden Horn and I think he’s going to make a very good sire. He’s the sort of horse you’re looking for, but I didn’t expect that. We were hoping he’d run well and be a nice horse for next year, so he’s ahead of schedule. We bought him in October, we just schooled him and then gave him a break. We thought we’d better drag him in from the field and get him ready for Cheltenham, so that’s what we did, but I didn’t expect any more than a nice run. We’d a lot of horses in the race and they all came here with the same plan and I couldn’t believe it when I saw him flying through.

Cheltenham Tue, 11th Mar, 2025  Golden Ace I couldn’t even dream that would happen. I’ve just asked someone to thump me because I must be dreaming, it is just bizarre. It’s a tragedy those horses came down and it spoilt the race entirely, we looked booked for second if not third but then State Man came down so it is marred by that, but the gods have favoured us. My owner was not at loggerheads (with me) because he pays the bills, but he was very keen to have a runner in the Champion Hurdle and we thought we could nick a bit of prize-money and we didn’t think we could beat Lossiemouth (in the Mares’ Hurdle) – it’s extraordinary how things work out. She is unbeaten here so she obviously likes the track. It’s interesting Willie tends not to run his mares much before Christmas so maybe that might be the way to go next year. Winning the Champion Hurdle is brilliant for the whole team, it’s amazing.