A horse who was bought to give a club of owners some fun landed one of The Festival’s championship races today, providing trainer Harry Fry with his first ‘official’ winner at the meeting.
Fry has been credited with plotting victory for Champion Hurdle winner Rock On Ruby in 2010, while based at a satellite yard for trainer Paul Nicholls. Now a trainer in his own right he got off the mark when Unowhatimeanharry won the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle under Noel Fehily. An 11/1 shot, the winner beat Fagan (33/1) and Champers On Ice (20/1) by one and a quarter lengths and one and a half lengths.
The Pertemps Network Final was the plan for Unowatimeanharry, but a win at Taunton caused a rethink. Fry said: “At the start of the season he was a 123-rated hurdler and the plan was simply to win a race for the [Harry Fry Racing] Club. It didn’t matter where – just to win a race and give the members a day out. First time out he won a conditional jockeys’ handicap at The Open meeting, so to end up back here winning the Albert Bartlett is extraordinary.
“Noel was brilliant and just let them get on with it. As always in this race it was a furious gallop and Noel was cool. He said he might not have been on the best horse, but he’s as hard as nails and tries all day. He kept battling and kept finding on the rising ground.
“The plan was the Pertemps. Two days after he won a qualifier for that race at Exeter I rang the handicapper thinking we might get a 7lb or 8lb rise, which he won off 138, and he said ‘that is the best staying novice hurdler performance I’ve seen all season’. I nearly put the phone down on him!
“He said you are nearly going up 12lb to 14lb, which will put you level with Barter’s Hill and company. Martin Greenwood, the handicapper, said ‘if I was given the choice I’d take your horse’, and that gave me the confidence to aim for the Albert Bartlett. We thought long and hard, because he had made his mark in handicaps.
“We bought him last summer, thinking he had the right profile for a club horse. He was a maiden, so he gave us lots of options – he had a bit of form and we could run him regularly for a bit of fun. There are 40 members and four horses in the Club, but for him to do this for them is extraordinary.”