Sky Bet Sunday Series: Goldie well prepared for big return

YOU only have to mention the Sky Bet Sunday Series and Jim Goldie’s eyes start to twinkle. Look a little deeper into them and you can just about see the pound signs flashing and the mind of a master planner hard at work.

It took four years, but last summer Goldie found a way to crack the previously unsolved code and snaffle the £100,000 bonus on offer to the first horse to win three times across the series with Letsbefrank. It came through smooth successes at Hamilton and Thirsk, an agonising near-miss at Haydock, and then a nerve-shredding short-head victory under an ice-cool Paul Mulrennan in the last-chance saloon that was Pontefract’s finale.

The shrewd Scot very nearly secured a share of the readies with his own American Affair, who came up just short in his bid for a third win only a hour later, although that progressive sprinter would have his big day in the Yorkshire sun when he plundered the Portland Handicap at Doncaster’s St Leger festival.

The same six-figure carrot is being dangled again as the Sunday Series - a collaboration between Sky Bet’s owner Flutter, Racing TV’s parent company Racecourse Media Group and ITV - returns for its fifth year, starting with a seven-race card worth £200,000 at Musselburgh on Sunday.

And Renfrewshire-based Goldie has once again set his stall out to try to nab it. “We’ve got a few lined up to give it a go,” he says, chuckling. “In all seriousness, though, series like these, where there’s such good money on offer, concentrate the mind. Owners need to win decent prize money to help cover their costs and make it all worthwhile. And it’s a trainer’s job to find and buy the right horses, and then prepare them correctly, so that they’re capable of winning that prize-money. I’d like to think we’re quite good at that.

“Where the Sunday Series is so good is it provides yards like ours with a real opportunity to win decent prize money. It’s probably not a series that’s on the radar of a lot of the really powerful operations, whereas we have quite a few horses that fall into the right category for it. It’s a real focus for us.”

Goldie’s knack for unlocking hitherto unforeseen improvement from older horses has been in evidence once again during the winter. Midnight Lion, Humble Spark and Oriental Prince are prolific winners who’ve seen Goldie make hay at his happy hunting ground of Newcastle and beyond. Last winter it was Bonito Cavallo, a 22-race turf maiden who reeled off an all-weather five-timer straight out the blocks, then added a sixth win for good measure.

“We’ve had another good winter with the horses we targeted at the All-Weather Championships bonus,” Goldie adds. “We set out a plan for that, and now we’ve got a fresh bunch of horses ready to really have a go at the Sunday Series. As well as the £100,000 bonus, there’s some excellent prize money on offer at each of the meetings, which make them well worth targeting. 

“It’s great for us that the series kicks off in our own backyard at Musselburgh. American Affair and Kelpie Grey both won for us on that card last year. We’re aiming to hit the ground running again.”

So, which horses does he think have the right credentials to hunt down the bonus this time around? “It will be harder for Letsbefrank as he’s starting out 18lb higher in the handicap this time,” says Goldie. “He’s a late developer and I know Paul thinks he’ll be better again this year, so we’ll see.

“He’ll kick off in the 1m4f handicap at Musselburgh, one of three or four I could run in that. He’s rated 78 now, so the problem with him is if we do manage to win a couple, he could go up too much in the handicap and run out of races he’s eligible for.

“I’d like to think Eternal Sunshine has the same potential for improvement as American Affair did last year. She had a tune-up at Musselburgh last week under Amie Waugh as Paul couldn’t do the light weight. She got bumped coming out of the stalls and was on the back foot after that, but at least it will have sharpened her up. She had a brilliant year last year, winning five times, but I feel she’s strengthened up again over the winter.

“Trojan Sun has been a work in progress so far. He didn’t even make his debut until May last year as a four-year-old. He won over 2m2f at Musselburgh in August but he can come back in trip. To win the bonus you need a horse who can keep improving through the year and he’s at the right end of the handicap to do that. 

“I’ve got a bit of a dilemma with Cascade Hall, as he’s qualified for some juicy races on All-Weather Finals day. So he might go to Lingfield first. Letsbefrank didn’t run at the first Sunday Series meeting last year, though, so we know it can still be done.

“Spun To Gold cost €200,000 as a breeze-up and has a beautiful pedigree, being by a US Triple Crown winner out of a Group 1 winner. He’s also a half-brother to Tapestry, who was runner-up in an Irish Oaks and beat Taghrooda in a Yorkshire Oaks. We had him gelded after we got him as a three-year-old from Andrew Balding, but he didn’t really fire last backend. I think we’ll see a different horse this year.”

Of all the barriers which stand in the way of repeating last year’s bonus-scooping feat, Goldie fears one upwardly-mobile rival, in particular. He added: “If I was a casual observer, rather than a trainer, and an owner asked me who they should send their horses to, I’d say to look no further than the All-Weather Championships leaderboard. 

“James Owen trains three of the leading nine horses in that, four in the top 15. That’s not an accident. We all need a bit of luck, of course. But what James has done is come up with a targeted plan and then executed it very well.

“There are lots of good trainers out there, but not all of them are as skilled at placing their horses. A nice day out is all well and good if that’s what owners want. But it doesn’t get you into the winners’ enclosure too often, which is what we’re after.”