2006 race

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04/10/07

1st 12 Leg Spinner 14/1
2nd 14 Caracciola 33/1
3rd 19 Fair Along 6/1
4th 6 Al Eile 25/1

Leg Spinner landed the the £2.5 Million totescoop6 Cesarewitch for Irish trainer Tony Martin and in the process won the totescoop6 for a player in Stretford, Manchester.

The punter staked £3,600 and won £1,519,301 with an opportunity to pick up a £955,968 bonus next Saturday.

The winning trainer said: “I couldn’t have been happier during the race and he had a wonderful jockey [Johnny Murtagh] who knows the horse. I got excited three furlongs out but luckily Johnny didn’t and he kept hold of him.

“It’s not too bad for a horse to win at Royal Ascot as well [Ascot Stakes 2005]. He came back with a problem after that and for a small, little horse, he’s had lots of problems. But we’ve got him right and on the day, he wasn’t too bad!

“This has always been the plan since he came back from injury and in the last 10 days, I knew that he was definitely on track and he’s really been telling us. Everything was on his side today including the ground drying up.

“As for the future, he won’t go on soft ground and we will have to be very careful what we do. He’s won his few hurdles and I’m definitely not against going jumping with him. He’s a bit small for fences although he does jump very well, but we’ll leave him to hurdles for the time being.”

Jumps trainers have an absolutely superb record in the £2.5 Million totescoop6 Cesarewitch. In the last decade, Martin Pipe won it in 2000 and 2002 with Heros Fatal and Miss Fara respectively, Nicky Henderson, trainer of today’s runner-up Caracciola, landed it courtesy of Landing Light (2003), while Philip Hobbs, who was successful with Detroit City last year, saddled Fair Along into third today.

JUMPERS ACQUIT THEMSELVES WELL TO FILL PLACES

Nicky Henderson, who sent out crack hurdler Landing Light to win the Cesarewitch in 2003, came close again with Caracciola, who chased home Leg Spinner.

Henderson said : “I said to Piers (Pottinger) the owner, ‘I don’t know what we can do with this horse’. He’s ten, he’s not mad about fences, he’s too high in the handicap over hurdles so what do you do? But he won a valuable race at Bath and he’s won a prize here.

“I just thought the rain went against us whereas I thought that would help (the stable’s other runner) Afrad, who has run a great race as well but it was too big a field for him.”

He added: “He (Caracciola) and the winner must have run to within a pound of each other if you take the Shergar Cup race. We went and got a 4lb penalty which was probably a bit daft but he won a £20,000 race so how could you not go there?”

Fair Along’s owner Alan Peterson was thrilled with another game effort from his diminutive dual-purpose star, who has this year been second in the Arkle Chase and the Chester Cup and has plenty of big jumps race targets in his sights this national hunt season.

Peterson said: “He’s ever so brave and he deserves to win a race. He got a bit hampered on the rail and then got stuck on the rail so Jamie (Spencer) had to bring him wide and that lost us a few lengths but he’s run really well, as always.”

Outlining his proposed jumps season, he said: “He’s heading for the Haldon Cup at Exeter next and if he runs well in that he’ll go for the Tingle Creek Chase. The perfect world would be Exeter, Tingle Creek and then Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham.”