Donald McCain overturns perceptions after Northumberland Plate win
When Donald McCain took over the trainer’s licence from his father, Ginger, he was at pains to point out that nothing had changed. Even the name on the documentation was the same – just followed by Jnr.
However, much has changed, all for the better, and the victory of Overturn in the Northumberland Plate at Newcastle on Saturday simply underlined how far the stable has come since the handover of the licence five years ago.
The Grand National victory of Amberleigh House in 2004, for which McCain was given much of the credit by his father, put the yard, which has been based in the idyllic Cheshire countryside of Cholmondeley for nearly 20 years, back on the map.
There was a time when the map extended little more than the routes to Haydock Park and Aintree, where Ginger and Red Rum ruled supreme in the Grand National during the mid-1970s. But McCain made a statement of intent with his first winner, Bearaway, who won at Newton Abbot in June 2006 and entered uncharted territory when his first runner at the Cheltenham Festival, Cloudy Lane, won the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Handicap Chase in 2007. Ginger, irrepressible and full of paternal pride, stole the moment when he said: “How he can do that, bred as he is, I do not know - it's magical, tremendous. He might make a trainer one day. I'll congratulate his father when I meet him.”
The son has continued to rise, with an improved number of winners each season. Last time it was 88 winners and over £700,000 that took him to eighth place in the trainers’ table and which included another two Cheltenham Festival winners, highlighted by the victory of Peddlers Cross in Neptune Investment Management Novices' Hurdle.
One of the most exciting horses to have emerged from the last jumps season, Peddlers Cross offers McCain a range of options for this winter. If he keeps the horse over hurdles he could run in either the Champion or Stayers’ Hurdles or make use of his slick jumping in the two or three-mile novice chase divisions.
The one alternative that McCain did not consider was a switch to the Flat even after Rite Of Passage, beaten five-and-a-quarter lengths by Peddlers Cross at Cheltenham, won the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot. “I've no inclination to run him on the Flat at the moment,” McCain said last week. “He's more a cross-country chaser than a Flat horse. It was only his first proper season in training last season, so we'll be sticking to the job we know.
“Whether he goes chasing next winter or not we still don't know. He's still only five and there's plenty of years left in him. We just want to do it right. We are going to play it by ear from the first half next winter. His form has stacked up in all different codes, probably as solid as any novice hurdler in the country.
“I've said all along that I would have thought his first run back will be over hurdles somewhere, even if he were to go chasing, to see if we can cope at that level and then see. He'll be back in the next couple of weeks. He's out now in the paddock next to the yard. It's early days and it will be a long time before we are worrying about where we run him."
The only worry for McCain on Saturday was a puncture on the M6 that prevented him and John Leslie, owner of both Peddlers Cross and Overturn, from getting to Newcastle to see the race.
Overturn proved himself a useful hurdler last season but the way his performance on Saturday opens up another intriguing possibility. Drawn in stall 21, Overturn had enough tactical speed to break quickly, allowing Eddie Ahern to get clear of the other high-drawn horses and then tack over to grab the rail’s position from where he dictated the rest of the race for a two-and-a-quarter-length victory.
McCain has not ruled out another run on the Flat late in the year, which offers the chance for a shot at the Melbourne Cup, where European horse have gone in recent years without improving on the two winners - Vintage Crop (1993) and Media Puzzle (2002) - trained by Dermot Weld.
It would be an ambitious change of policy but, if the trainer is too busy to oversee preparations, he could always send his father.
That should overturn a few local perceptions about British racing.
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