Fruitful Festival for the Cotswolds (From Evesham Journal)
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Fruitful Festival for the Cotswolds
10:00am Thursday 21st March 2013 in Sport
COTSWOLD trainers toasted three victories for their charges at the famous Cheltenham Festival.
Naunton handler Nigel Twiston- Davies enjoyed a fruitful meeting with victories for The New One and Same Difference alongside one second place and two thirds.
The Pertemps Final was the race for Temple Guiting trainer Jonjo O’Neill who bagged a 25-1 winner in Holywell and the fourth-placed Shutthefrontdoor.
David Bridgwater’s star The Giant Bolster finished fourth in the Betfred Gold Cup, while Martin Keighley’s Champion Court managed fifth in the Ryanair Chase.
For Twiston-Davies, he improved on a tough spell which saw the withdrawal of Gold Cup hope Imperial Commander with a lung infection and three other horses hit by a bug.
The New One had no such problems as he beat a strong Neptune Investment Management Novices’ Hurdle field by more than four lengths.
The five-year-old (7-2) was led superbly by the trainer’s jockey son Sam to defeat Rule The World for his third victory from four starts this season.
Nigel Twiston-Davies said: “It’s wonderful and, when it’s all in the family, it makes it even better. He’s a real class horse.
“Rock On Ruby went from this race to the Champion Hurdle and it’s definitely possible he’s a Champion Hurdle horse. Aintree is a definite possibility.”
The trainer landed his second winner when Same Difference (16-1) edged out Super Duty in a thrilling Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup finish under amateur Ryan Hatch.
Twiston-Davies said: “He only ran 19 days ago in the Racing Plus Chase so we were always taking a chance it might come too soon, but it obviously didn’t.”
O’Neill opened his account when Holywell broke a frustrating run of second-placed finishes when steered to victory by Richie McLernon.
The trainer said: “It was brilliant.
Richie gave him a great ride and knew what he was doing and it all went the right way for us. The blinkers obviously helped.”
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