SCOTT'S CHAMPION ACE HELPING HIM PLAY HIS CARDS JUST RIGHT

LIFE is like a game of cards and down-to-earth jumps handler Jeremy Scott is very happy with the hand he has been dealt.

- BY MELISSA JONES

Every couple of years at the 370-acre farm in Somerset he and his wife Camilla call home, a star has come out of the pack.

Playing for fun around their local course Taunton at first, £12,000 purchase Golden Ace upset the odds to become a Cheltenham prize winner in March 2024 - and returned a year later to trump the rest in the Champion Hurdle.

"We've had a bit of luck and stumbled across some good horses," said Scott, who sold his dairy herd of cows in 2007 to concentrate on training full-time.

"Before Golden Ace we'd never gone to the Festival with a horse we thought was capable of winning."

Scott gained many new friends, affectionately chanting 'Jezza', when his stable star capitalised in a rough-and-tumble renewal of the day one feature a year ago.