FEATURE DAVID MANN
a sudden The Real Whacker came along. Paddy approached me and said will you buy a share in him, as I was buying him for a client but he had let me down. I thought, here we go again! “Paddy said to me I have this lad and he is something special, but I said Paddy every time a trainer comes to me and says they have something special it never works out. I said okay I’ll buy into it, and it has just turned out to be something else.” Having started his season in inauspicious fashion when finishing down the field at Cheltenham in October, on his return to action The Real Whacker was swiftly switched to fences, over which he made a winning debut at the course’s November Meeting. From there it was on to the Grade Two Paddy Power Novices’ Chase back at the track on New Year’s Day, a race that will always stick out in the mind of Mann following the response he received from runner-up in the race Monmiral’s famous part- owner Sir Alex Ferguson. Mann said: “I was the only one in the parade ring on
our behalf on New Year’s Day and I only flew over that morning, but I remember standing not far from Sir Alex Ferguson. “I remember looking at the television cameras running over to Paul Nicholls and Sir Alex Ferguson before the race and there was this lad decked out in red they didn’t see. I didn’t start shouting until two fences from home and again I was waiting for something to take him on. “He won by several lengths that day and I started shouting like a lunatic in the parade ring and the cameras come up towards me. “I could see Sir Alex think who the hell is that fella, but fair play to him about an hour-and-a-half later he did come and shake my hand in the owners and trainers bar.” For as much pleasure Mann enjoyed on New Year’s Day, it was The Real Whacker’s victory at the Festival in March that meant the most. At first glance he thought he had been denied but it is now a victory he hopes will act as a catalyst to more Grade One glory.
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