Alan King illustrated why he is near the top of any beauty parade of dual purpose trainers over the weekend, saddling winners at Ascot's British Champions Day and at Kempton's Jumps fixture the following day.
Finding another competitor like Trueshan on his retirement is going to present Barbury with a great challenge. The six year old won his third consecutive Long Distance Cup with a typically battling performance to take the lead 110 yards from the post and win by a head. In so doing, he took his career earnings to £1,558,000.
Naysayers have been criticizing King all summer for the sparing appearances of Trueshan, who really operates at his best with some cut in the ground. Withdrawn from the Ascot Gold Cup, he is nevertheless a winner of this year's Northumberland Plate and was beaten just a neck in the Doncaster Cup in September. He is the ultimate professional.
28 winners this Flat season have recouped over £886,000 for owners of horses at Barbury, toward which Trueshan is a significant contributor.
And yet those of us who prefer the winter game will never fully accept that Alan King is as much a Flat as a Jumps trainer. And to reaffirm that the winter game is still very much part of the Barbury profile, winners at Market Rasen and Kempton on Saturday and Sunday served to reassure us that the core discipline at Barbury remains National Hunt racing.
Right up there in King's Jumping affections is Sceau Royal, winner of 17 races over hurdles and fences and over £650,000 in wina nd place prize money for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede. And the 10 year old, whose first race was 8 years ago back in 2014, appears to have lost none of his appetite based on his winning performance in a Listed Hurdle at Kempton on Sunday, which sets him up beautifully for another crack at Wincanton's Elite Hurdle, a race he has already won three times.
Flat recruit Admiralty House lent credence to the changing seasons when adding the Juvenile Hurdle to Sceau Royal's achievement, whilst Tom Cannon also partnered Harbour Lake in a handicap hurdle at Market Rasen the previous day.
As weekends go, it doesn't get much better than this.
Alan King illustrated why he is near the top of any beauty parade of dual purpose trainers over the weekend, saddling winners at Ascot's British Champions Day and at Kempton's Jumps fixture the following day.
Finding another competitor like Trueshan on his retirement is going to present Barbury with a great challenge. The six year old won his third consecutive Long Distance Cup with a typically battling performance to take the lead 110 yards from the post and win by a head. In so doing, he took his career earnings to £1,558,000.
Naysayers have been criticizing King all summer for the sparing appearances of Trueshan, who really operates at his best with some cut in the ground. Withdrawn from the Ascot Gold Cup, he is nevertheless a winner of this year's Northumberland Plate and was beaten just a neck in the Doncaster Cup in September. He is the ultimate professional.
28 winners this Flat season have recouped over £886,000 for owners of horses at Barbury, toward which Trueshan is a significant contributor.
And yet those of us who prefer the winter game will never fully accept that Alan King is as much a Flat as a Jumps trainer. And to reaffirm that the winter game is still very much part of the Barbury profile, winners at Market Rasen and Kempton on Saturday and Sunday served to reassure us that the core discipline at Barbury remains National Hunt racing.
Right up there in King's Jumping affections is Sceau Royal, winner of 17 races over hurdles and fences and over £650,000 in wina nd place prize money for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede. And the 10 year old, whose first race was 8 years ago back in 2014, appears to have lost none of his appetite based on his winning performance in a Listed Hurdle at Kempton on Sunday, which sets him up beautifully for another crack at Wincanton's Elite Hurdle, a race he has already won three times.
Flat recruit Admiralty House lent credence to the changing seasons when adding the Juvenile Hurdle to Sceau Royal's achievement, whilst Tom Cannon also partnered Harbour Lake in a handicap hurdle at Market Rasen the previous day.
As weekends go, it doesn't get much better than this.
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