Fiercely Proud battles for hard-fought Ladbrokes success

Fiercely Proud came out on top in a nail-biting finish with Kabral Du Mathan to win the Ladbrokes Handicap Hurdle at Ascot.

Ben Pauling has always thought plenty of the five-year-old, but he was beginning to run out of excuses.

Having finished placed in a couple of graded novice hurdles last season, he was given a handicap rating of 129 but his season started in inauspicious fashion.

On his intended first run at Cheltenham in October, his jockey’s stirrup leather broke and he ran loose, meaning he was withdrawn, then in a competitive handicap at Ascot last month, he held every chance when falling two from home.

Fiercely Proud finished a respectable sixth in the Greatwood Hurdle but Pauling will have been staggered that after three intended runs, he was rated lower than he started the season.

That meant he was still dangerously treated, though, and when the previously unbeaten Kabral Du Mathan came upsides for a battle after the last, Fiercely Proud just had that little bit extra for Kielan Woods and prevailed by a short head.

Woods had previously been Pauling’s stable jockey but he chose to keep his job as retained rider for the Megsons, who moved their horses away from Pauling last season.

The trainer has proved there are no hard feelings, however, and continues to use him.

“That’s just what we wanted. We thought he was well handicapped at the beginning of the year but we got it all wrong,” said Pauling.

“He got loose at Cheltenham, we rode him too handy here and then we had to drop him out in the Greatwood. He had so much to do in the Greatwood.

“This was a change of tactics and it worked, they went so hard and it was good to see. Two-mile handicap hurdles should be fast run, that’s what we’re here for and this year they’ve been run at such a dawdle.

“That was what we need for these horses, this horse is keen everywhere, you go a good gallop like that and he’s able to settle off it. I’m just delighted for the owners, it’s brilliant, and it’s nice for the horse to win a big one as well.”