Favourite Riders Onthe Storm will miss Saturday’s Caspian Caviar Gold Cup after being declared a non-runner in error
With an impromptu rendition of ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ in the winner’s enclosure here, Nigel Twiston-Davies began to shake off the trauma of losing the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup a full day ahead of the race. About six hours earlier, a phone call gone wrong between him and his secretary resulted in Riders Onthe Storm being mistakenly withdrawn from Saturday’s big betting race, for which he had been the clear favourite at odds of 4-1.
The trainer had been watching horses go up his famously steep gallops near the picturesque Cotswold village of Naunton when he decided to call his office a quarter-mile away and ask them to take Rocco out of a race at Bangor on Friday afternoon, the horse having got an infection. “But it was windy,” he recalled. His secretary somehow thought he was talking about Riders Onthe Storm.