Racing honors Hunt family as outsider Glengouly hits the jackpot at Cheltenham

This was an afternoon at the track when the outcome of the big race was secondary to the cause it supported. For Faye Bramley it also marked a huge step forward in her training career as 33-1 outsider Glengouly went all out to win the Support the Hunt Family Fund December Gold Cup.

The Hunt Family Fund was set up by BBC racing commentator John Hunt and his daughter Amy following the murders of his wife Carol and daughters Hannah and Louise to raise awareness of violence against women and support causes affecting young women.

Saturday’s race, the traditional feature of the December meeting, came at the end of a series of events over the past week, including a dinner and auction in Cheltenham on Thursday, which raised almost £500,000.

Hunt called the race as usual for Radio 5 Live and said afterwards that he, like most people watching from the stands, had expected Glengouly to be swallowed up after the turn for home by Jagwar, the 11-4 favourite, or Vincenzo, the 7-2 second favourite. Sean Bowen had other ideas, and the champion jockey had kept enough distance to meet their challenges on the uphill descent to the line.

The winners’ owners, the Cheeky Pups Syndicate, have pledged £10,000 of their prize money to the Hunt Family Fund, while for Bramley, who is in her first full season with a licence, victory with a £16,000 castoff from the Willie Mullins stable was a notable success with just her fourth runner at Cheltenham.

“I’m amazed,” Bramley said. “I can’t believe I’m still here, let alone that I have a winner. I couldn’t have been happier during the race because I know the horse inside and out and I could tell he loved it.”

Bramley trains from a yard owned by former champion jockey, AP McCoy, and became fully licensed after running the stable as a pre-training facility for a number of years.

“I’ve been working for AP for about eight years,” Bramley said. “But we were a bit tired of the preparation and just wanted to give it a good try [McCoy] supported the decision. This horse was quite difficult to train, but he came to life.”

Jagwar was less than two lengths behind the winner on his first start since winning the Plate Handicap Chase at last season’s festival, but he was dropped from the Gold Cup betting by Paddy Power and dropped to 40-1 (from 25-1) for the Ryanair Chase at the festival during Saturday’s two-and-a-half mile trip.

Four winners at last December’s meeting here went on to enjoy success at the Festival in March and Adam Nicol’s Minella Study will be sent towards the Triumph Hurdle on Gold Cup day after his easy victory in the opening youngsters’ hurdle.

Minella Study and One Horse Town, the odds-on favourite, went into the race with unbeaten records after two and four starts respectively and the pair turned clear down the straight. It was Minella Study who found the better turn and he flew last en route to a six and a half length success.

“It works really well,” said Nicol of the winner, who was introduced to the Triumph Hurdle betting at 20-1 by Paddy Power. “I hit him earlier this week and he showed great speed. The thing about this horse is he doesn’t know he’s a racehorse yet. He goes from strength to strength, he has speed and he travels.”