Nigel Twiston-Davies
Willy Twiston-Davies (poppy) is the natural successor to his father, with brother Sam (left) enjoying a successful riding career
›› Davies Sr needed to sell most of his
farm. The bargain basement Young Hustler won 15 races, more than a quarter of a million in prize-money and finished third in a Gold Cup at 20-1. A hugely popular front-runner who raced 65 times, he now looks comfortable in retirement on a nearby farm, close to Burford. Equine Stakhanovites of that kind still make up the bulk of the Twiston-Davies string, which, numbering 90, is smaller than might be expected in view of the impact it makes. But, thanks largely to Simon Munir, the trainer now also gets sent his share of expensive horseflesh. “He’s very important and he’s got some lovely horses with us - that was a bit of luck, really,” Twiston-Davies says, when asked how the association began. “I happened to be talking to his racing manager, Anthony Bromley, and asked him to value a horse I’d got called Ballybolley. He’d won two bumpers. Anthony said, ‘Well, hang on, Simon and Isaac [Souede] are actually looking for a horse. We’ll have him.’ But he failed the vet.” So much for that. The two went their separate ways but TwistonDavies bumped into Munir again on the Thursday of the Grand National meeting
in 2014. Munir asked after Ballybolley. “I said, ‘He’s running on Saturday. I think he’ll win it.’ He said, “Well, sod the vets, we’ll buy it.” He did buy it and it won the Champion Bumper. So I was feeling a little bit sad, in a way, that I’d sold it. Then on the way home he rang me up and said I could have the prizemoney.”
“It really hurts to lose. I don’t mind so much if they’re mine. I hate letting people down” Was this the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Munir has horses at several powerful yards but his greatest concentration is here, where his horses take up 11 boxes and include among their number the great grey record-
breaker Bristol De Mai. This is the animal responsible for the title talk that has attached to his trainer this winter, prompted by his wins in the Charlie Hall and the Betfair Chase. He was memorably awesome at Haydock, pounding home 57 lengths clear of Cue Card, an unprecedented margin for a Grade 1 contest. In the press room, some fagpacket calculations were made of the prize-money Twiston-Davies would accumulate if the King George and the Gold Cup fell to Bristol, and Blaklion won the Grand National. “If I’d won all those, we’d have been in with a squeak,” he says, but acknowledges that his charge’s flop at Kempton put “a huge dent” in such aspirations. “That can’t have been his run. If he’d been beaten ten lengths, you’d say, well, he just isn’t good enough. But he was beaten further than that, beaten too soon. Nothing really has come out of it.” The trainer does not seem quite ready to accept that a complete explanation lies in the stomach ulcers for which Bristol De Mai has been treated. “Anyway, he’ll be a better horse, hopefully, at Cheltenham,” he adds. Perhaps the grey can still give the yard a second Gold Cup to go with the
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