Elliot hopes Backstage takes starring role
Getting to the top may not be easy, staying there near to impossible but Gordon Elliott has already proved that he could certainly do the former, may even achieve the latter and do so with a horse that others have discarded.
Elliott’s victory when he saddled Silver Birch to win the John Smith’s Grand National in 2007 was remarkable not only because he was only 29 at the time, the youngest trainer to win the race, but also because he had yet to train a winner in Ireland and he had only four previous winners to his name with runners in Britain.
When Silver Birch was trained by Paul Nicholls, he exhausted the resources of the champion trainer with injury problems, and Backstage has been a similar story for Elliott, the horse having failed to make good on early promise when he was trained by Evan Williams.
Originally trained by Jehan Bertran de Balanda, Backstage was placed in two of six starts over hurdles and fences in France. He was sent over to Britain shortly afterwards by then owner Sir Robert Ogden and made a winning start for Williams October 2006 in a novice chase at Cheltenham. But that was to be his last win for two years.
He was tailed off on his next appearance in a novice chase at Aintree the following month and subsequently missed the rest of the season and, after four placed runs over hurdles, was sold for 13,000gns at Doncaster Sales.
Elliott made the successful bid but then found that his prospective owner wanted out of the deal and so the horse became the property of a syndicate made up of Elliott’s stable staff. Backstage made a winning debut for new connections in a point-to-point at Castletown-Geoghegan and continued to thrive between the flags, winning three of his five subsequent starts. And he ran a fine race on his first attempt over the Grand National fences when finishing eighth in the John Smith’s Fox Hunter’s Chase last year.
Since then Backstage has run eight times – six of them in Britain. After finishing seventh in the Punchestown Champion Hunters Chase, Backstage won a three-mile handicap chase at Perth in May, a course where Elliott has a 29% strike-rate, and made two further visits there, easily landing a novice hurdle at the start of July before being turned over in a similar race 12 days later.
Backstage returned to fences for a Listed handicap chase at Newton Abbot in August, in which he came third, before going on to post a good victory in a valuable extended three-mile handicap chase at Ffos Las just six days later, when he forged clear for a 10-length verdict over Nostringsattached.
From there Elliott has trained the horse with only Aintree in mind and Backstage did not make a racecourse appearance until February 7th, when he took third in a novice hurdle at Musselburgh in the colours of Middleham Park Racing, who had purchased a 50% share in the horse just before Christmas. He warmed up for Aintree by finishing eighth in a two-and-a-half-mile Grade Three chase in heavy at Navan nine days ago.
Big race winners are the fuel that drives any yard. They are the rare moments that make all the endless cold mornings and disappointments seem tenable but few stable staff will have as much of a stake in this year’s race as those at Elliott’s yard who took the chance to take a stake in Backstage.
Backstage will carry the colours of Middleham Park Racing but the other half belongs to the Capranny Stable Staff Syndicate in a deal brokered by former jump jockey Tom Malone just before Christmas.
The syndicate is made up of employees from Elliott’s Capranny Stables in Co Meath including all of Backstage’s work riders, travelling head lads Sarah Parsons and Jordan “Sparky” Chalmers, vet Eduardo Martinez, chief yardman Jimmy Smith and head lad Simon McGonagle, who partnered Backstage to all four of his point-to-point victories.
Each member put in €100 to purchase Backstage and the horse has more than repaid his supporters with eight victories between the flags and under Rules.
Saturday could prove the biggest payday of them all.
Gordon Elliott’s Grand National record: 2007 SILVER BIRCH (won), 2009 Silver Birch (fell 22nd)
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