After an autumn of no shows and poor attendances that was more like it. A decent crowd at Sandown Park on Betfair Tingle Creek Day had plenty to cheer about including a definitive victory in the feature race by Alan King’s Edwardstone, which stamped him as the best two-miler around, and a dazzling round of jumping from Jonbon in the Henry VIII Chase which saw him cut to 7-4 for the Arkle at Cheltenham next March. ‘I’m absolutely stealing a living when I go out on him,’ said Jonbon’s jockey Aidan Coleman. ‘He’s push-button.’ But there was a special character to the cheers around the winner’s enclosure after a tight three-horse finish to the Pertemps Network Handicap Hurdle in which David Maxwell on Dolphin Square triumphed over Call Me Lord and Wilde About Oscar by a nose and a short head.
They don’t make too many like David Maxwell any more. He is successful enough as a property developer to buy and maintain a posse of decent horses and have them trained by the best so that he can enjoy the thrill of riding them himself, competing on equal terms as a balding middle-aged amateur of 44 against the twentysomething professionals who are the sport’s household names.
I am not on familiar terms with many property developers but I would guess that most of them don’t make the sort of money he must do by spending all their time helping old ladies across pedestrian crossings. For all I know, in private life David might be a climate change denier, a guy who gets his kicks by listening to Meghan Markle podcasts or a collector of tarantulas. But on the racecourse the pros respect him as a safe and sensible if determined competitor.
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