Gordon Brown – Race Reporter
Gordon has a wealth of experience of racing through his background in the written and broadcast media. His current principle role is reporting and supporting the scene in Scotland on Racing TV and relaying the latest news with Scottish angles.
TOMMY’S OSCAR, trained by Ann Hamilton and ridden by Sean Quinlan, was an impressive winner of the £40,000 feature race at Kelso on Sunday.
The top-weight, a well-backed 5-4 favourite, cruised into the lead jumping the last before trouncing Cedar Hill by six-lengths.
“He’s a good horse on his day and he tends to run well on his first run of the season,” said owner Ian Hamilton, husband of the winning Northumberland-based permit-holder.
“The problem now is finding a race for him over this sort of trip in the north with his rating. We don’t like travelling him too far nowadays and last year we even ended up running in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle.”
Brandy McQueen produced a nice performance on his debut over fences to land the Scottish Racing Academy Novices’ Limited Handicap Chase.
Trained jointly by Harriet Graham and Gary Rutherford and sent off the 5-1 outsider of the four runners, he was given a prominent ride by Ryan Mania on his way to a comfortable 19-length success.
“We thought he’d run really well and he was a bit novicey over the first two or three fences but Ryan made sure he warmed to it,” Graham said. “We’re delighted with him and we’ll look at coming back here or going to Carlisle later in the month.”
Lucinda Russell’s recent hot streak continued when Bois Guillbert landed the opening Welcome To Family Day Handicap Hurdle under Stephen Mulqueen.
Three-time champion jockey Brian Hughes took the opening William Hill Bookmakers Novices’ Hurdle with Donald McCain-trained 1-6 favourite Clody Lane.