Windsor: Gidleigh Park reveals true price with Lightning strike for Harry Fry | Racing Information

Harry Fry was delighted and relieved in equal measure after seeing secure star Gidleigh Park get his season again on observe with a front-running victory within the Fitzdares Lightning Novices’ Chase at Windsor.

At all times held within the highest regard by his coach, the seven-year-old received a Chepstow bumper and his first three begins over hurdles earlier than ending sixth within the Albert Bartlett eventually season’s Cheltenham Pageant.

He was an odds-on favorite to make a profitable change to chasing at Kempton in November, however was pulled up after leaping 5 fences and was later discovered to be affected by a fibrillating coronary heart.

In consequence, Gidleigh Park lined up on this Grade Two contest as a 15-2 outsider of 4 underneath Bryan Carver, but it surely was clear from an early stage he was having fun with the duty, as he set a powerful gallop from flag-fall that solely 4-6 favorite Caldwell Potter was in a position to stay with.

Grade One-winning hurdler Caldwell Potter, a €740,000 [£625,000] buy on behalf of an possession group that features Sir Alex Ferguson, loomed up trying an enormous hazard early within the house straight, however Gidleigh Park stored galloping out in entrance and was effectively on high as he handed the publish with 4 lengths in hand.

Private Ambition was an extra 19 lengths behind in third, with You Put on It Nicely final of 4 from begin to end.

Fry instructed Sky Sports activities Racing: “I believe reduction might be the overriding feeling, firstly that he is come out and jumped and galloped and hit the road laborious.

“Successful at present was the icing on the cake, as we needed to see him again to his finest and I am thrilled clearly to see him put in a efficiency like that. We’re again on observe and onwards and upwards.

“Lots of people have helped us get him again, lots of people have put in loads of effort and it is nice to see that arduous work paid off and the dream is alive.

“All summer season, I could not consider I ran him within the Albert Bartlett over three miles to be sincere, as a result of he isn’t a gradual horse, as he is proven there at present.

“We had been beginning again from scratch at present, so we’ll go house and see how he comes out of it – clearly his well-being is paramount – and we will sit up for plotting the remainder of the marketing campaign with him.”