Jump racing comes with risks, and Wednesday saw the second and third equine fatalities of the meeting when hurdler Akdam was put down after a fall and Champion Bumper runner Stack The Deck fractured a knee when running on the flat.
It will have been a sad night for those most closely connected with the animals, and earlier Sire De Grugy’s jockey Jamie Moore acknowledged his own bond with his stable star.
“I love this horse – apart from my family, he is next best. He has been an absolute star to me,” he said.
“All the boys (fellow jockeys) have come out of the weighing room and it is just great to have a really nice horse.”
The Moores are a racing clan. Gary trains, his sons Jamie, Ryan and Joshua, and daughter Hayley, all ride.
Jamie, 29, who is known by his colleagues as “Geezer”, is the smiler to his elder brother Ryan’s straight man, but even the usually deadpan elder sibling looked chuffed at the triumph.
“It was a beautiful ride, I couldn’t have done any better,” said Ryan, a three-time champion flat jockey not known for courting the media.
Their father Gary must have been one of the proudest men in Cheltenham. And he can feel proud of a job well done.
After all, he’s trained a Champion Chase winner in Sire De Grugy and sired another one in his son Jamie.
Suits you, sire.