Minellacelebration: the stable flagbearer fuelling dreams of National glory

When Katy Price tested out her stable star as a potential purchase for her small point-to-point yard, she took it as a positive sign that she did not fall off him. Now, more than six years later she is hoping Minellacelebration, her ten-year-old flagbearer, will carry her all the way to the Grand National next spring.

Minellacelebration jumped into the big-race picture last month with an impressive 14-length win in a 3m1f veterans’ handicap chase around Aintree’s Mildmay course, which earned a 12lb rise to an official mark of 152. Given that Magic Light and Rathvinden ran off 151 and 154 respectively in 2019 when placed behind Tiger Roll in the last National to be held, Price’s stable star could develop into one of the underdog stories that have made the race such a great institution.

All the ingredients are there – a dogged, determined fighter from a small but upwardly mobile yard with an unsung jockey in Ben Poste – and the dreaming has started already.

“You can’t plan too far ahead with these animals but I don’t know where I’d find the next horse who’d take me to the Grand National,” says Price. “You’ve got to grasp every opportunity. Horses test your nerve every day, so hold your nerve and things usually happen.”

The next test for Minellacelebration is likely to be a return to Aintree on December 5 for the Becher Chase over the National course or the Grade 2 Many Clouds Chase on the Mildmay track. He was only tenth in the Becher last year but “didn’t seem at his best then”, according to Price, while regular rider Poste would also be hopeful of a better showing this time.

Minellacelebration and Ben Poste on way to victory at AintreeCredit: Grossick Racing

“He jumped brilliantly [in last year’s Becher] but the ground was far too soft for him,” says Poste. “He took to it really well and was bang there three out, but he just didn’t quite get home on the ground. On decent ground there’s no reason why he couldn’t go and run well.”

Minellacelebration certainly comes alive at Aintree, having recorded three wins and a second from four runs on the Mildmay course, and his latest win was a big step up the ladder.

“The last time at Aintree was the first time he’d won in a flashy way,” says Poste. “He jumped and travelled so well but I kept thinking there must be another horse who was doing the same behind me, and it was only when I watched the replay back that I saw he could probably have been called the winner with a circuit to go. He’s ten but he felt like he’d improved.”

Minellacelebration has progressed year on year since Price bought him for point-to-pointing in the summer of 2014. Having finished third in an Irish point behind two highly rated opponents, he seemed like he might be good value and Price went over to see him.

“I rode him myself up the famous hill in Piltown, where Joseph O’Brien now trains, and I didn’t fall off,” she recalls. “I used that as the basis for thinking I’d be able to train him myself.

“He cantered all the way to the top, he didn’t jink or shy at anything. I was doing everything on my own at the time, riding out, mucking out, and he just seemed very straightforward.”

Around the same time, Nick Elliott was introduced to Price by another of her owners, Lord Lipsey, and he agreed to buy Minellacelebration. He was a long-standing jumps owner but point-to-pointing was new to him and he found himself won over by Price’s enthusiasm.

“She’s quite a force of nature and I decided to get involved in a couple of point-to-pointers,” he says. “We had this fantastic year where we had Minellacelebration and another one, who won nine races out of 14 between them.”

At the end of that season it was clear Minellacelelbration was too good for pointing and he was the catalyst for Price to take the plunge into training under rules. “I was young and ambitious and it seemed a good time to try,” she says. “Minellacelebration became my first winner under rules and he’s gone on and on. I owe him my whole career really.”

That first win in a handicap hurdle at Exeter in November 2015 was quickly followed by another ten days later at Taunton, where Poste rode Minellacelebration for the first time. He was about to lose his claim and this was a partnership that would smooth his way into the senior ranks.

“I won that conditionals’ race on him two days before my 26th birthday and it was my last ride as a conditional,” the jockey recalls. “He’s been the horse of a lifetime for me.

“Katy’s done a great job with him. I’m very lucky Katy and Nick have given me this chance and kept me on him. Hopefully we can go and have a lot more fun with him. He’s a gift that keeps on giving.”

Every season has brought a new milestone for Minellacelebration. He won for the first time at Aintree as a novice chaser – a particularly sweet success for Poste, who is from the Wirral – and early the following season he landed the Staffordshire Plate at Uttoxeter. He repeated that success 12 months later and this year took another step up to score a Listed victory in the Summer Cup at Uttoxeter.

His liking for Uttoxeter could bring the Midlands Grand National into play if he doesn’t go to Aintree and the veterans’ chase final at Sandown in January is another option for Price, who swells with pride at his achievements.

“He’s won ten races now for me in National Hunt, three hurdles and seven chases, and four point-to-points on top. In his first 16 runs for us he was never out of the first four and he’s still never been pulled up. He always tries his best,” she says.

Not that the talent he shows on the track is so evident at Price’s 25-box yard near Hay-on-Wye in Wales. “I ride the horse every day myself and I just plod round on him,” says Price. “He’d never show anything at home and he certainly wouldn’t work like a 152-rated horse.

“He’s just the pet around the place and he gets to do whatever he wants really. He wouldn’t be the most beautiful horse and he certainly wouldn’t seem like a good horse from looking at him. He looks like a pony with hairy legs.”

Minellacelebration and Ben Poste win at Aintree in OctoberCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

Before Minellacelebration came along, Price had been running a mobile phone business alongside the training and she continued to do that for another couple of years, but now the horses are her sole concern.

“I started with three and we’re up to 25 now. We’ve grown and grown,” she says. “I couldn’t have dreamed it would get this big. I’m full up all the time and I put up a couple of extra boxes and I’m still full up.
“It’s stressful and it’s challenging, but each winner you have feeds the ambition and the more horses you have, the more chance you have of winning.”

Minellacelebration has been central to Price’s growth as a trainer. “You could wait many years for the experience he has given me,” she says. “Training is a big learning curve and you need to take it all in and learn from every experience. I’m very grateful for what he’s done for me already and maybe he’s not finished yet.”

The threads in this wonderful story have tied Price, Poste and Elliott for five years now and they extend back to Ireland too. “We’ve become very good friends with the people who bred

Minellacelebration, the Dorans, and I’ve got a three-year-old from them at the moment that we’re breaking in and is for sale,” says Price, who is also still owed part of the deal she struck over Minellacelebration with his former owner and trainer, John Nallen, all those years ago.

Nallen owns Hotel Minella in County Tipperary and Price, who habitually works an 80- to 90-hour week, has yet to take him up on the offer of a free stay. Perhaps she will make the time if her stable star wins another big race this season. It would be the perfect place for a Minella celebration.

‘He’s an incredible horse who keeps getting better’

Nick Elliott made his name with Sunday-night drama but the thrills and spills of the Grand National will be his Saturday teatime viewing next April if Minellacelebration gets to the big race.

Elliott, 76, was a legendary figure in a 41-year career in television that started at Granada straight out of university and took him to controller of ITV drama, where he was responsible for a string of big audience pullers including Doc Martin and Midsomer Murders as well as hard-hitting one-off productions such as Hillsborough and Bloody Sunday.

Now, as owner of Minellacelebration, he is enjoying an unfolding real-life story of his own. “It’s lovely,” he says. “He’s an incredible horse. His success rate has been terrific lately and, far from declining in his veteran stage, he seems to be getting better and better.”

Expanding on the qualities of the horse he calls ‘Seb’, the enthusiastic and knowledgeable owner adds: “My feeling about him is that he has two great strengths. The first one is his jumping – he’s just beautiful to watch, he sails over fences, and that is such an advantage. And the other is the determination he shows. When you think he’s only going to get a place he sticks his neck out and finds a bit more.

“The race before last he won like that at Uttoxeter. The Dan Skelton horse [Bandsman] had it in the bag and dear old Seb just kept going and won by a neck.”

Elliott has been involved in horses for 35 years and has enjoyed several notable successes, including a share in the Million In Mind syndicate that owned high-class hurdler Mysilv in the 1990s. He was on the National trail once before with I Hear Thunder, who won the 2006 Grand Sefton Handicap Chase over Aintree’s famous fences but
was struck down with injury six weeks before the big race.

He was offered big money for I Hear Thunder and wouldn’t part with him, and the same goes for Minellacelebration.

“Katy says there have been offers but she knows I wouldn’t sell him. I wouldn’t be tempted,” he says.

“I’m not a rich man but I’ve always been able to do racing for the fun and the competition of it. Obviously I’d like better prize-money but it’s not what I run for. It’s a great thrill if you can beat one of the bigger stables. When I watch racing on the telly, I always support the smaller yards.”

If Minellacelebration makes it to the National, many racing enthusiasts and once-a-year punters will latch on to him for the same reason.

Fans Favourites' is a new feature in the Racing Post Weekender in which we talk to those closest to racing's most popular horses and find out why they pluck on our heartstrings. Out every Wednesday

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