Mr Vango holds on to win Midlands Grand National
Mr Vango held on to claim victory ahead of Tanganyika in the Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter.
Mr Vango, ridden by Jack Tudor, led early on and was at or near the front throughout the four and a quarter mile 25-fence race of 16 runners.
Sara Bradstock's top-weighted nine-year-old, who was 11-1 in the odds, then built up a lead of about two lengths after the penultimate fence and, despite Tanganyika closing in, took victory.
Mr Vango added the win to victories in the London National at Sandown in December and the Peter Marsh at Haydock in January.
"He's great fun and a great jumper," Tudor told ITV Racing.
Bradstock, speaking to Sky Sports Racing, said: "He's wonderful, isn't he?
"He just doesn't know when to give up, he gallops and jumps and just keeps going.
"He is much better than anybody thought. If you saw him at home, you'd laugh because he seems to be slow!"
Latest horse racing results
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Yahoo
Queen opens new stand named in her honour at ‘beautiful racecourse'
The Queen visited what she called 'the most beautiful racecourse' and opened a new stand that has been named in her honour. She was at the privately-owned Hexham Racecourse – Northumberland's only track – to open the Queen Camilla Stand. The Queen was shown around the venue, 600ft above the town, which boasts views across the county and an undulating jump track which sits in a natural amphitheatre. Camilla, under a photograph of the late Queen's horse No Trumps, which won a race at the course in 2019, said she hoped to come back with a runner one day. She wore a pale-blue Bruce Oldfield outfit and a horseshoe broach marked Minoru, which was a horse owned by Edward VII. The Queen used a clear umbrella at times as showers passed over. After officially opening the stand, she said: 'How thrilled I am to be here in Hexham. 'I haven't been here, I am ashamed to say, before but it really is the most beautiful racecourse. 'It has the most wonderful views. 'Unfortunately, I didn't bring the weather with me, I can imagine what it is like on a sunny day because it looks pretty good on a day like this. 'Next time, I hope to come back with a runner. Hopefully it emulates No Trumps.' The Queen spoke to racing industry figures including trainer Charlie Brooks, who said afterwards: 'She is very engaged in racing issues and, without putting words in her mouth, is understanding of the challenges – she knows her stuff.' Robert Whitelock, racecourse manager, showed the Queen around the site and said afterwards: 'It is wonderful that she came up here and I think she is delighted about the stand being named in her honour.' Racing has been held in Hexham since 1670 and National Hunt Racing started at the current site in 1890. The Queen, like her late mother-in-law before her, is a long-standing supporter of horse racing and has loved horses since she was a girl. She once told ITV Racing: 'I could probably ride before I could walk.' A follower of jump racing from her teenage years, Camilla recognised the odds were against being a winning racehorse owner. Speaking to the channel in 2021, she said: 'I think people go into racing who don't know a lot about it and think 'Oh, we will buy a horse and it will win a race', but it's terribly difficult to win any race anywhere. 'The odds are actually stacked against winning, aren't they?'
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Yahoo
Rachael Blackmore retires from horse racing
Jockey Rachael Blackmore has announced her retirement and said she was 'sad but grateful' to end a glittering 16-year career. Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the Grand National in 2021, and again made history by winning the Gold Cup a year later. She said: 'My days of being a jockey have come to an end. I feel the time is right. I'm sad but I'm also incredibly grateful for what my life has been for the past 16 years. 'I just feel so lucky to have been legged up on the horses I have, and to have experienced success I never even dreamt could be possible.' Prior to her Grand National triumph Blackmore had already become the first female jockey to win the Champion Hurdle aboard Honeysuckle that year and in 2022 she secured another first when steering A Plus Tard to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Having won the two-mile Champion Chase at the 2024 Festival with Captain Guinness, Bob Olinger's Stayers' Hurdle win in March meant Blackmore ticked off the final championship event at Cheltenham - a feat very few jockeys complete during their career and putting Blackmore further out on her own among female riders. Rachael Blackmore bows out as the most accomplished female jockey of all time, Flat or jump, anywhere in the world. She is a genuine role model and one of the few people from the sport to have transcended its parish boundaries. Exactly what the farmer's daughter from Tipperary had against glass ceilings, who knows. But she leaves the sport like a town centre at 1am, scattered with broken shards and the phrase consigned to the scrap heap of cliches. She finally rendered the sex of a rider irrelevant. The list of big races she became the first female to win, topped off by the 2021 Grand National on Minella Times, do not tell the extraordinary story of the relative late-comer to the sport who bucked all the rules about how you get going and then, for the last seven years, lit up the racing's firmament. 🚨 Rachael Blackmore, the first woman to win the Grand National, announces her retirement from racing with immediate effectWhat an incredible victory this was 🏆🏇#ITVRacing — ITV Racing (@itvracing) May 12, 2025 Educational qualifications in the weighing room are thin on the ground but she combined her studies for a degree in equine science and a diploma in business studies with amateur riding. 'In hindsight, though, I was not fulfilling my potential either academically or as a jockey,' she once told the Telegraph before adding with trademark modesty, 'if there was any potential.' Against the advice of almost everyone who pointed her to Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh who had great ground-breaking careers but as amateurs, trainer Shark Hanlon, who had given her a first winner under rules in 2011, thought she might do better as a professional because she could do the light weights most male jockeys struggled to do and consequently might get more opportunities. So the only ordinary amateur who was 'getting on average and not setting any records,' took the counter-intuitive decision to turn professional in 2015 becoming only the second female jockey in Irish jump racing history to do it for a living after Maria Cullen. She has never looked back. In 2017 she was champion conditional jockey, the same year she had her first ride at the Cheltenham Festival on Linger, pulled up in the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, an inauspicious start at the place she would go on to dominate to such an extent that in the crowd-free pandemic Festival of 2021 she rode six winners there and was leading rider. I remember interviewing her before that first Cheltenham ride and what annoyed her most was the fact that Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys Hurdle was not open to her because, at 27, she was past the 25-year-old cut off age. She had tried to get the race conditions changed. Not one to rock too many boats, it is about the most outspoken thing I can ever remember her saying. But her career took another upward turn when Eddie O'Leary, Michael O'Leary's brother and racing manager, suggested on a taxi ride with the trainer Henry de Bromhead that she ride out for him in the summer with a view to riding a few of the Gigginstown horses in the yard. The horses she rode for the yard started winning and it helped in a world where there is still a certain amount of prejudice against women that De Bromhead simply wanted the best available for his Waterford stable regardless of sex. He gave her the one thing no other female jockey had managed to secure: the first jockey's job at a big yard which was going places and full of good horses. Together they have enjoyed a golden seven years, albeit tinged with the terrible tragedy, the death of De Bromhead's son Jack in a pony racing accident. They have won two Champion Hurdles, a Gold Cup, the National, jump racing's holy trinity, the Champion Chase to complete the set of Cheltenham's big three. And while Minella Times and A Plus Tard, who also gave her a first Festival winner in 2019, were special, the horse she will be best remembered for is the mare Honeysuckle, winner of 17 of their 19 starts together. Honeysuckle was there at the start of her career and took her nearly to the end. BOB OLINGER GOES 3/3 What a day for Rachael Blackmore who now wins the Paddy Power Stayers' Hurdle with Bob Olinger 👏#ITVRacing | #CheltenhamFestival | @rachaelblackmor | @HenrydeBromhead — ITV Racing (@itvracing) March 13, 2025 Four of Honeysuckle's wins came at Cheltenham, in the 2020 Mares' Hurdle and in the next two Champions but if Blackmore and De Bromhead ever got a louder, more heartfelt reception than the one they got on the return to the winners' enclosure in March 2023 following the Mares Hurdle, I would like to hear it. The great mare had been written off following her first two defeats, many thought she should have been retired and, on top of it, this was a first Festival for the De Bromheads without Jack. It was emotional on so many levels. As a jockey, she had it all; tactical awareness, no more so than at Cheltenham. Strength in a finish, style, an ability to get horses to relax and jump, a knack of going with rather than fighting hard pullers and the capacity to take a heavy fall. However, the broken neck, which she sustained last summer and kept her out for a large part of last season, may have contributed to her decision to call it a day. Having had a poor final season by her standards, due in part to missing so much of it, she still bounced back with a Cheltenham double for Henry de Bromhead whose horses, to that point, had also been out of form. She was popular and respected in the weighing room which should not be dismissed; it always helps smooth the way. Above all though - and this is probably something you have to be born with - horses ran for her. She did not seek the fame that came with such success and I am not sure she was totally comfortable with it, although with practice, she seemed to have warmed to it latterly. No doubt there will be no shortage of television work now but she always appeared much happier with her fans, particularly the legion of young ones, than she was with the media. Her retirement leaves a gaping hole in terms of female representation, not only in the big races but in the weighing room. If Bryony Frost's career is not in decline, she is now based in France, where she is in need of a successor to Frodon. The announcement also comes shortly after Hayley Turner retired after riding over 1,000 winners on the Flat after becoming pregnant. Some are coming through the ranks - after all she was knocking around for a while before it all clicked into place. But as much as racing would like there to be, there is not a long queue of women who want to ride over the sticks professionally and those she has inspired to be the next Blackmore are probably no older than early teens. The one thing we can say with some confidence, it will be a long time before we see another Blackmore. The only decision facing the Jockey Club now is Cheltenham or Aintree for the statue. Or both.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Yahoo
Chester May Festival 2025: East India Dock wins the Chester Cup
East India Dock (9-4 favourite) grabbed victory in the Ladbrokes Chester Cup on final day of the 2025 Boodles Chester May Festival. James Owen's four-year-old, who had finished third in the JCB Triumph Hurdle over Jumps at the Cheltenham Festival, transferred that form back to the Flat to land the prestigious feature on the Roodee, under Harry Davies. The jockey was winning the race for a second successive season after partnering Zoffee 12 months ago. Last year's winner, the Hugo Palmer-trained Zoffee – from the nearby Manor House Stables of former England and Liverpool FC forward Michael Owen – went to the front initially before Irish raider Leinster (10-3) and Ryan Moore took over with Caballo De Mar (11-2) sat in third. Davies had East India Dock just in behind the leading trio and as the pace increased, he followed Caballo De Mar through when that in-form rival moved to the front after the turn for home. But East India Dock was travelling supremely well and having closed in on his main rival, he moved clear and score by a length from Caballo De Mar. Zoffee ran another fine race and having been second in 2023 and won last year, he came home third a length-and-three-quarters back with Leinster a further three-quarters-of-a-length further adrift in fourth and Who's Glen (9-1) fifth. READ MORE: Chester May Festival 2025 day three: Caballo De Mar can win the Chester Cup READ MORE: Chester May Festival 2025: Lambourn wins the Chester Vase to book Derby ticket Newmarket trainer Owen was winning his first Chester Cup with only his second runner in the race and was delighted to see his owners' plan come to fruition. He said: "He travelled lovely and hit his flat spot like he usually does but he stayed on well. (Owners) Tim and Mr (Bill) Gredley had this plan and it's great that we have pulled it off. There are some big pots on the Flat and he's a lovely dual-purpose horse now. To win the Chester Cup is fantastic, we've hit the crossbar a few times coming here, but it's nice to have a winner here and we've won the big one." Davies, who became the first jockey to win back-to-back runnings of the Chester Cup since Philip Robinson scored twice on Anak Pekan in 2004 and 2005, told Sky Sports Racing: "I'm very lucky to get the rides in this race I have and every time I have ridden in it I don't think I've had a bad ride. He got a good draw which always helps round here and he jumped good, I was able to hold my pitch and then he was gutsy. He stays well and had the perfect profile coming into the race. "He loved that dead ground and while everything else was sort of half struggling, he just cruised on through – what a tough horse and I'm delighted for connections. He's a strong traveller and when horses have run over hurdles they learn how to relax better and in a race like this where you have to really rev them to hold their pitch, if they can then relax and drop the bridle there is nothing better. James has been very supportive of me and the Gredley Family have also been happy for me to ride their horses and I was delighted when I got the ride on this fella." Michael Bell's Let's Dream (33-1) landed a shock victory in the Precision Facades Handicap under Warren Fentiman. The four-year-old held on to score by a head from Auld Toon Loon (18-1) with Rathgar (6-1) a further two-and-three-quarters-of-a-length back in third just holding off Flight Leader (33-1) by a short head.
