Supersprint Victory Remembered
The thing about reporting on Saturday’s Weatherbys Super Sprint at Newbury is that you never quite know what you’re going to get.
On a Group 1 Saturday there is always a good chance you’re going to be talking to Aidan O’Brien or John Gosden at some stage, but the beauty of having a race like the Super Sprint, in which the less a horse cost at the sales the greater their advantage at the weights, is that more trainers and owners have a shot at stealing the spotlight.
My favourite Super Sprint winner of recent years was undoubtedly Mrs Danvers, because she was exactly the type of horse the race was designed to promote.
She hailed from a small-scale stud in Bishop’s Waltham, Hampshire, and breeders Mark Burton and Connie Hopper decided they couldn’t afford to put her into training. Instead they offered 20 trainers the opportunity to lease Mrs Danvers. Only two replied, including Jonathan Portman, who even before he got her home to his Lambourn yard had the Super Sprint in mind.
She wasn’t qualified for sales races at the time, having never been offered at a public auction. The last thing her breeders wanted was to lose her but Portman persuaded them to send her to the sales ring, where she was led out unsold at just £1,000, which not only qualified her for races like the Super Sprint but also guaranteed that she would carry a featherweight.
Portman then brought in 92 members of the Turf Club syndicate to share her ownership and together they went on a five-race winning run, including victory in the 2016 Super Sprint carrying 8st and later the Group 3 Cornwallis Stakes.
That day at Newbury was magical. There were members of the Turf Club everywhere in the winner’s enclosure, the breeders were close to tears and it gave Portman a deserved opportunity to put O’Brien and Gosden in the shade.
It felt refreshing to be able to tell a different story and her rags-to-riches tale managed to connect with a much wider audience than your average winner. She was awarded the Racehorse Owners Association’s special achievement trophy for that year and even featured on ITV’s News At Ten.
Having been unsold for peanuts at the sales, Mrs Danvers ended up being priceless. Let’s hope for a similar result on Saturday.
