Betfair Tingle Creek Chase
Grade 3 Handicap, Sandown 14:25
£150,000 guaranteed,
4yo plus,
1m 7f 119y, Class 1  
Saturday 4th December 2021

1 Greaneteen 12/1
2 Hitman 12/1
3 Captain Guinness 10/1
5 ran Distances: 5½l, hd, 6½l
Time: 4m 2.40s (slow by 11.40s)

Starting at 12-1, Bryony Frost and Greaneteen travelled handily through the two-mile Grade One contest until he was ridden to take up the lead over the penultimate fence.

From there he pulled further and further away from stablemate Hitman, and eventually crossed the line five and a half lengths ahead to give Nicholls a one-two in a race he was winning for the 12th time. Hot favourite Chacun Pour Soi was a major disappointment.

Frost said: “I got over the last, but it felt a very, very long way up the hill! We were riding for everything we were worth.

“I can’t speak. I landed over the last and thought ‘I’m going to get caught, somebody’s going to come and get me. I can hear them, I can hear the crowd!’.

“We won the Tingle Creek. I absolutely can’t believe it.

“I can’t tell you what it (reception from the crowd) means, to feel the support of everyone here is huge.

“I ride horses and it’s the best life. I can say I do that as a job. It’s quite special and it’s the best place to be when you are galloping out on track. That’s the place you’ve got to take yourself, it’s what I’ve done since I was little.”

She added: “They knew he was 100 per cent right today and the team at home is phenomenal. I couldn’t do this without the team, Paul and his training. Paul said this was the horse that was coming here for this.

“My biggest mishap was probably on the downhill fence, we were right down on our nose, but he is a smarty and he is clever and he brought me back up. I travelled down the back and coming upsides our stablemate Hitman, around the home bend, we found two out and found the last and we just kept coming to the line.

“We crossed the line and it was a moment of relief and also then it starts flooding in that, ‘My God, you’ve just won the Tingle Creek!’. It was awesome. 

Trainers Quotes

Nicholls – whose previous Tingle Creek heroes include Kauto Star and Master Minded – was quick to pay tribute to Frost.

Of his latest winner, he said: “He is improving enormously all the time. Today was the best I have ever seen him look. He is a young horse and he wasn’t beaten far last year and we probably didn’t ride him right.

“We didn’t have enough belief in him to be honest, but he stays on really strongly now and you can ride him differently. He was beaten two lengths in the race last year and I know he has improved more than that.

“He is a real live contender for that (Champion Chase) and obviously loves it around here, but obviously the Champion Chase will be his target now.

Jockey Patrick Mullins felt Chacun Pour Soi might be a carrying a knock of some sort as he failed to jump with his usual fluency.

“He felt like he might be feeling something, but he didn’t fire today,” he said.

“He was perfectly sound when he pulled up. He didn’t jump like he can.

“I was surprised he wasn’t attacking the fences and when I asked him he just didn’t do that. He never jumped like he can. It wasn’t to be today.”

BetZone

Betfair Tingle Creek Chase (Grade 1)
£150,000 guaranteed, 4yo plus, 1m 7f 119y, Class 1
5 ran
Going: Good to Soft, Soft in places

NO. DIST HORSE AGE WGT TRAINER JOCKEY SP
1     Greaneteen 7 11-7 Paul Nicholls Bryony Frost 12/1
2 5½ Hitman 5 11-7 Paul Nicholls Harry Cobden 12/1
3 hd Captain Guinness 6 11-7 Henry De Bromhead Rachael Blackmore 10/1
4 6½ Nube Negra 7 11-7 Dan Skelton Harry Skelton 4/1
5 22 Chacun Pour Soi 9 11-7 W P Mullins Mr P W Mullins 8/13F

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