‘A Good Start In Life 100% Bears Fruit'

Gold Cup winners See More Business and Cool Dawn, and 2020 runner-up Santini all began their journeys on a British point-to-point field. Lucy Elder looks at recent graduates who could be the rising stars of Cheltenham

- Lucy Elder

IF you were to stick a pin in the entries list for Cheltenham, chances are the horse’s first racing experience was at a point-to-point. The progressive six-year-old Grade Two winner Does He Know, trained by H&H columnist Kim Bailey, has already twice proved himself at Cheltenham this season and holds a selection of Festival entries. His racing journey started with a win at Charm Park, piloted by John Dawson, for Jacqueline Coward.

“My grandad Mick Easterby bred him. I rode his dam, Diavoleria, and won a bumper on her at Ludlow,” she says.

“He was at my grandad’s. My uncle David [Easterby] said, ‘Bob’ – my nickname – ‘go and get that horse out the field, don’t worry about grandad, just take him and do what you can with him.’ So I did.

“I didn’t tell them how I was getting on. I kept it under wraps because I thought he was a nice horse. I still hadn’t told them when he went over the winning line.

“He moved beautifully and was always a fantastic jumper. Whatever I asked him to do, he did easily – nothing was a problem for him.”

Kim remembers buying him with Aiden Murphy at the 2019 Cheltenham April Sale.

“He struck me as an athletic horse,” he says. “He was a nice sort, just my type.

“He gets worked up in the paddock, so the fact there have been no crowds has suited him. But once you are on him, he’s as good as gold.

“He wouldn’t be the biggest horse, but he has tremendous spring, and I don’t mind smaller horses if they have that spring.”