Kim's Back In Hunt For Big Prizes

Nick Townsend talks to trainer Kim Bailey about his remarkable renaissance

- Nick Townsend

Like an ageing rock star, Kim Bailey still tends to be talked about in terms of his greatest hits, the numbers that established him as a key player all those years ago: Mr Frisk, Master Oats and Alderbrook – the triumvirate who earned him, respectively, a 1990 Grand National and, five years later, a Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle double.

Never mind that these days he’s riding high in the charts (or the jump trainers’ championship table, to be more accurate) – in ninth place at the time of writing – and has been named as a ‘Big Beast’ by another publication in highlighting its seven trainers to watch at Cheltenham Festival.

To discover such illustrious names as Nicky Henderson, Paul Nicholls, Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Dan Skelton and Henry de Bromhead on the list was to be anticipated. But, as Bailey admits, with a touch of self-deprecation: “I scrolled down to read what they were saying, and suddenly found my name. Yes, I was rather pleased with that. It wasn’t what I was expecting.”

Not, it must be stressed, because the character who trains at Thorndale Farm, Andoversford, located so close to Cheltenham he could almost walk his charges to the course, hasn’t established a very decent equine armoury at his stables, having restored his fortunes in sterling fashion after a desperate downturn in his career. More because Bailey is aware that he will always be defined by his bagging jump racing’s ‘Big Three’ events in the last century rather than his more recent successes, and particularly by a certain TV presenter.