Max Comley in good spirits as Jay Bee Whiskey flies the flag for Gloucestershire trainer

Max Comley has become familiar with the question: "So what are you doing differently?"

The Gloucestershire point-to-point trainer’s win tally in the past three seasons had been two, four and six, yet in the current campaign he has saddled 14 winners before the halfway mark.

He says: “People ask about feed and gallops and so on, but we haven’t changed anything. The horses are fit and healthy and we’ve just had a bit more free rein from owners in where we place them. 

“Take Jay Bee Whiskey, whose owner Kevin Crawford lives near Swindon. I saw a winnable race at Alnwick [in Northumberland], and he agreed to let me take the horse up there. Kevin went up with a friend, stayed overnight and we were really well looked after at the races, so then I suggested a race in Cornwall, and he was more than happy to have a weekend down there.” Crawford has clearly been gripped by the travel bug, for on Sunday Jay Bee Whiskey ran and won at Friars Haugh near Kelso.

Jay Bee Whiskey has won four races this season, as has stablemate Wagner – who is owned by Charlie Noell, the man behind the sponsorship of Cheltenham’s Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase – while Oscar Montel gave the stable back-to-back victories in Cocklebarrow’s recent Lord Ashton of Hyde’s Cup, one of the season’s ‘Classics’ which the yard landed a year earlier with Just Your Type. The last-named is owned by Neil O’Hara, Comley’s landlord at a yard near the Cotswolds village of Naunton.

Jay Bee WhiskeyCredit: Grace Beresford 2018 079283421

At 6ft 5in, Comley’s time riding as an amateur was always likely to be brief. He rode in 50 point-to-points and accrued one winner, yet the love of speed has not diminished – he was planning to ride in Friday’s Golden Button Challenge, a cross-country race in which it pays to throw the heart over the fences and hope the head follows but which has been abandoned due to flooding.

Comley says: “I miss race-riding every day and started training by accident. My parents have no knowledge of horses, but when I was three my sister wanted riding lessons for her sixth birthday. I whinged so much they let me sit on a pony and I could not have been happier. My sister fell off on her second lesson and never went again.”

Going to school in Cheltenham stimulated the racing bug, and by running to the racecourse after lessons during the festival he was able to catch the vapours of the Gold Cup. Work experience with Kim Bailey and James Evans formulated career ideas, and a place at Hartpury College to study agriculture was ditched at the final hour.

He says: “I rang my mother, told her I wasn’t going and – to be fair – she said ‘I know you’re obsessed with racing’.”

Comley acknowledges doors have opened when needed. Friends and family helped with a few horses at the start, but it was through joining a team chase quartet that he met O’Hara. With winners have come new owners and he says: “I’m now getting approaches from people I haven’t met before.”

He adds: “I wouldn’t have trained as many winners this season without James King in the saddle. He is brilliant at reading races and we’ve never had a cross word.”

Weekend preview

A demoralised champion conditional forced to retire in November by weight issues at the age of 22, Luca Morgan has instigated a new project.

He says: “Initially I had no plans, other than to avoid getting caught up with not riding. I found a yard in Warwickshire and moved in on December 18, and we have 30 boxes with pre-trainers, young horses and point-to-pointers.”

This weekend Morgan expects to run Perfect Pirate – owned by Ben Pauling’s wife Sophie – at Horseheath and Killard Point and Wheres My Wonder at Badbury Rings. He says: “Point-to-pointing gives us a competitive edge at weekends – it’s nice to come back to the sport which got me started.”

Tom Ellis, whose Tigerbythetail is a quality recruit to hunter chasing at Fakenham this afternoon, tends to gain winners at Horseheath, and he runs former Irish pointer For One Night Only in the maiden race and Bawnmore in the ladies’ open race. If the ground is soft or easier – a curious comment when part of Britain are waterlogged – Ragnar Lodbrok can return to winning ways in the men’s open.

Nine races at Badbury Rings is a throwback to the 1990s when such cards were not uncommon. Another Furlough, who chased home two good horses at Chipley Park, can take the opener for trainer Harry Ryall, and his Keepitfrombecky should go close in the first of four divisions of the maiden race.

Dorset Diamond, a maiden after 14 races, has the assistance of Will Biddick in division two and that could enable the eight-year-old to break his duck, while in division three the champion rides his own newcomer No Drama This End. A €26,000 store by Walk In The Park, the four-year-old fits the profile of a winner.

Quickcharge finished strongly when second at Cocklebarrow last month and could be the answer to the restricted race.

Saturday

Horseheath, Cambridgeshire, CB21 4QP – first race 12.00. Six races, 77 entries

Sunday

Askham Bryan, Yorkshire – abandoned

Badbury Rings, Dorset, DT11 9JL – 11.25. Nine races, 158 entries

Knightwick, Worcestershire – abandoned

More information at pointtopoint.co.uk & gopointing.com

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