A new-look Pridwell won renewed admiration after coasting to his third victory on the trot at Ascot yesterday. Previously labelled quirky, enigmatic and temperamental, he has even shown a reluctance to race. But so far this season he has proved a reformed character as he has amassed over £40,000 in prize money.
Third in last year's Champion Hurdle, Pridwell's odds for the 1998 running were cut to 20 to 1 by William Hill after he landed the Coopers & Lybrand Ascot Hurdle.
His rivals have still to get him off the bridle this term as he cruised to his hat-trick, beating Ocean Hawk by three lengths.
Trainer Martin Pipe has a cartoon of Pridwell, posing as Rodin's The Thinker, hanging in his toilet. But he has no explanation for Pridwell's current enthusiasm. "He's really sweet on his racing and enjoying himself. Why, I don't know," he said.
Pipe will enter the seven-year-old in a three-mile event at Newbury next weekend but the Bula Hurdle at Cheltenham next month could also be a target.
At Aintree, travel blues for Pennybridge and his jockey Mick Fitzgerald were forgotten as the combination swept to success in the feature race. Irish raider Pennybridge put in an impeccable round of jumping to clinch victory in the John Parrett Memorial Handicap Chase.
The 7 to 1 chance made a lot of the running and produced some super leaps in the later stages to defeat Monyman by eight lengths with a further short-head back to Barnageera Boy.
Pennybridge was only able to make the trip from his base at Ballymena after storms in the Irish Sea relented. "At one stage the ferry company told us that no livestock could travel on the ferry and I was about to call the whole thing off," said trainer Ian Ferguson. "But then they phoned us at 4pm to say that the horse could go over after all."
Jamie Osborne's agent Gavin Davies yesterday dismissed as "untrue" speculation that the jockey will miss the Cheltenham Festival in March. Osborne, who drove Senor El Betrutti to victory in last Saturday's Murphy's Gold Cup at Cheltenham, broke his left wrist in a fall from Space Trucker in the Mitsubishi Shogun November Novices' Chase there the following day.
Osborne left Cheltenham General Hospital early yesterday and although Davies conceded his recovery could take longer than normal, he denied the injury would rule the jockey out of the Festival.
"He is out of hospital and back home today. There is no substance to reports that Jamie will miss the Cheltenham Festival - they are untrue. We don't know when he is going to be back. The benchmark for this sort of injury would normally be eight weeks. He may take a bit longer but to miss the Festival we would be looking at 16 to 17 weeks."
