The Front Runner: an unforgettable first double for one of Britain's youngest trainers - read today's edition of Chris Cook's award-winning newsletter
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Few successes achieved in the moneyed milieu of the St Leger meeting this week will mean as much to connections as her two winners at Perth on Monday meant to Jess Bedi. Having enjoyed great success at point-to-pointing, she is in early stages of her licensed training career, when each individual victory is savoured – this was her first double, achieved at odds of 155-1.
"It was amazing," she enthuses. "Definitely a surprise!"
Which is to say that one of her runners had been something of an enigma, though the other has always been popular at Bedi's yard in the north-east, near Yarm.
"Pateen, he's a legend, he's been placed there numerous times and he's been very unlucky not to win one there. He's been a brilliant horse for me, he was my first winner as a licensed trainer. We're always hopeful with Pateen.
"Shantou Lucky was a bigger surprise for us. He's been really difficult to train in the year and a half that we've had him. We've tried different things with him. For this race, it was first time back in the headgear, Aaron [Anderson] gave him a really positive ride and I think that suited him."
Perhaps what got Shantou Lucky focused on the job in hand was a bit of drama. His victory came in a race in which the early leader fell in front of the stands, causing two others to unseat and hampering several, including the eventual winner. A circuit later, one of the loose horses threatened to carry Shantou Lucky off the track but he gave no sign of being deterred or intimidated, cleared the last and scored by ten lengths.
It was an exciting way to win any race, never mind your first double. "He showed himself to be game when that loose horse tried to run him out through the wing," Bedi says. "We're thrilled with him, really."
Bedi was hailed as Britain's youngest trainer when she got her licence, aged 23. Four years later, she thinks she might still hold that honour: "There wouldn't be much in it between me and Danny Brooke."
Through her early seasons in point-to-pointing, when she rode most of her runners, her strike-rate was a remarkable 37 per cent. Racing under rules has not bowed to her quite so quickly but progress is being made.
"It comes with its difficulties, but I suppose everybody will say that," Bedi reflects. "We're just trying to find our feet and hopefully results like the other day will help get a few more people involved in our yard.
"We've got 13 boxes but we only have eight horses in at the moment. We'd love to have some new faces involved, so I feel like we need to put ourselves out there more.
"I love my jumpers and we've got some nice ones in for the winter. We've got some lovely Flat horses as well.
"It's good to be able to bring them up from a young age, teach them everything they know – and we give them such a nice, fresh lifestyle that we can teach them exactly what we want. So when we do take them to the track, we haven't got false expectations of them.
"We've got acres of land, they can go around the land in the morning, they'll go to the gallops, we like to do a lot of hacking with them and we're only 20 minutes from Redcar beach, so they'll often go to the beach to have a leg-stretch and clear their minds up there."
Bedi's yard is based on the family farm (mostly arable, some sheep). "We're just slowly building it into everything that we need. We've got our own gallop, our own schooling facilities and stalls, plenty of outside space for the horses."
Anderson, her partner, rides most of the jumpers. Among the Flat jockeys Bedi likes to use is Paula Muir. We agree that she seems underused. "She gets a really good tune out of the difficult horses."
This summer, a Muir-ridden winner for the yard was demoted, the stewards feeling that Prince Hector had intimidated his rival in the closing stages. Showing her competitive spirit and all-round competence, Bedi presented her own case at the appeal and persuaded racing's judicial panel she was in the right.
"It was ... something else. We had a lot of help from the Professional Jockeys Association, who rang Paula and talked her through the process. We just got our heads down and did it ourselves. It was quite hard but you'd do it for any of your owners."
With only a handful of horses, it's never easy to know when Bedi will next have a potential winner. Her memorably named Somebodycomegether (by Outstrip out of Absent Amy) is entered at Redcar on Tuesday for what could be the four-year-old's handicap debut, but Bedi is wary of potentially quick ground.
"She's been a lovely horse, ran well at Wetherby. She's exciting but we've got to look after her."
The trainer also mentions "a lovely mare", as yet unnamed, who will tackle bumpers this jumps season and could be worth looking out for. She's by Passing Glance.
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