Ashforth's Alternative View: Bridgwater and Carroll are a potent pair

Poppy is a great name, as is Polly. If I had a daughter I’d call her Poppy Polly Ashford (or Ashworth, Ashcroft or Ashwell, which is what most people call me).

As it happens, the Poppy in question is Poppy Bridgwater and her mother and father, Lucy and David Bridgwater, are to be congratulated on giving her a good name.

It’s the least you can do and compares favourably with the name of a girl at school who had to survive being baptised Julia Bangs.

I’ve no idea where Julia (perhaps now neé) Bangs will be on Wednesday but Poppy Bridgwater will be at Southwell to ride Toni’s A Star (2.30) and Mister Music (4.10) for Tony Carroll.

Bridgwater (5) has already won on both of them this year and has forged a remarkably successful partnership with Carroll.

During the past five years Bridgwater has won 32 races, 23 of them for Carroll, for whom she only had her first ride last year.

Since then 71 of her 122 mounts for Carroll (58 per cent) have finished in the first four. They must be loving it.

Whereas Bridgwater still has a lot to learn I doubt if Carroll, now 62, has anything much to learn, except possibly his name, as he is officially Anthony William Carroll.

He has been training on the Flat and over jumps since 1995 and, as the saying goes, “knows what he’s doing.”

What he’s been doing is making regular appearances in the winner’s enclosure, particularly on the Flat, invariably in less exalted equine company.

He’s trained more than 900 winners and 2018 was his best on the Flat, with 61 winners and earnings of over £450,000, yet he has rarely appeared on a front page, or a back page.

There have been a few headline performances, particularly with one of the most extraordinary horses in training, namely Caspian Prince, a horse to die for (not literally).

Carroll bought Caspian Prince in France in 2013 for what turned out to be a bargain €20,000 and sold him to owner Stephen Louch.

The four-year-old had already run at least 22 times on the Continent, winning four times. He has since run another 64 times and is still owned by Louch.

Still owned by him but no longer trained by Carroll, nor Dean Ivory, nor David Loughnane, nor Roger Fell, nor Tony Coyle, nor Julia Brooke but is still with Michael Appleby.

The string of trainers may not have been too pleased but Caspian Prince didn’t object, not just winning another 15 times but graduating to Group level and earning a total of more than £730,000.

A star for unfashionable stables, Caspian Prince won six times for Carroll in 18 months, including the £62,250 Epsom “Dash” in 2014 and a £67,308 handicap at Meydan the following Spring.

Caspian Prince went on to win the “Dash” twice more, in 2016 and 2017. The latter year he won the Group Two Sapphire Stakes at the Curragh and last year a £62,250 sprint at Musselburgh.

What a horse!