F EATURE JUMP RACING DYNASTIES
Only 20 minutes or so of the 2020-21 Jump season remained when Nick Gifford celebrated victory in a near-empty winner’s enclosure at Sandown Park on April 24 Keeping it in the family
A nd while the handicap chase he had just won was far from the most significant race on the bet365 Jump Finale card, let alone the season, there can hardly have been a more poignant moment in the sport all year. With tears in his eyes the trainer celebrated Belargus’s success in the bet365 Josh Gifford Novices’ Handicap Chase as if it were a Grade One prize. To him, the race named in honour of his father was just as important. Some 18 years earlier Josh Gifford, who famously saddled Aldaniti to an emotional victory in the 1981 Grand National under Bob Champion, had sent out the final winner of his career on the final day of the season at Sandown Park with Skycab.
Following his death in 2012, it was decided to name a race in his honour at the bet365 Jump Finale and here was Belargus, a six-year-old owned by JP McManus, winning it for his son. An emotional Nick Gifford said afterwards: “It does mean the world to us. We’ve got a lot of fond memories here and it’s a race that we’ve been trying to win for a while but you need a nice horse to do it. “We nearly won it four or five years ago with Christopher Wren, who got mugged on the line. That was for JP McManus as well, so I’m sure he’ll have a smile on his face too, as I’m sure he wanted to win this as much as I did.” It may have been a fleeting moment in the grand
Josh Gifford (second right) with Bob Champion (left), Aldaniti and the horse’s owner, Nick Embiricos, after the 1981 Grand National win
Nick Gifford winning the bet365 Josh Gifford Novices’ Chase on Belargus at Sandown earlier this year, the event named after his father
8 KALENDAR
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker