Underdog who got it right on big day
| Published date | 14 April 2021 |
| Date | 14 April 2021 |
| Publication title | Weekender |
In against him, among others, was Ryalux. A horse saddled by Andy Crook who was in his training infancy and who had a string of less than ten horses. Of those, Ryalux was much the best.
"We didn't have anything in the yard that could go with Ryalux - even if he was on an off day," says Crook. "My next best horse at the time was called Pornic who was a 94-rated hurdler in the year we went to Ayr."
Ryalux had his first 14 starts for Middleham trainer Micky Hammond and Crook happened to be head lad at the yard, but then when Hammond took a break from training opportunity knocked.
Crook says: "I took over Micky's yard when he had a year off, and that included Ryalux, who I did quite well with, and we won a valuable chase with him at Perth in April 2002.
"But then Micky came back again, and it was at that point I decided to set up on my own.
"I found a nice stable nearby, Ashgill, and fortunately for me, the owner, William Lomas, decided to keep Ryalux with me rather than going back to Micky's.
"That gave me the opportunity to carry on his training career and plot a path towards Ayr.
"We needed to get his handicap mark up to get in at
Ayr, so we chose some decent races to run him in and he was trying his heart out every time."
The 2002-03 season started at Kempton in October with a third to Zafarabad in the hands of Norman Williamson before winning at Ayr for Andrew Thornton.
By the time of his third start at Kelso that December,
Richard Johnson took over in the plate and, while together the pair finished a close second behind Hugo De Grez, Crook came to an important decision after the race.
"He'd had quite a few different jockeys - Wilson Renwick, Tony Dobbin, Norman Williamson, Andrew Thornton, Richard Johnson," he adds. But I decided that if we were to go for the Scottish National I wanted continuity and someone who could commit to him in the lead up to the race, and on the day.
"Richie McGrath was based locally, so I approached him and he was happy to take on the job. He told me he could commit and that was that."
McGrath's first taste of action on board Ryalux came in a...
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