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When jumping fans of any age talk about a “proper, old-fashioned steeplechaser”, they have a strapping colossus of a horse in mind, with the strength to keep jumping and powering on through the deepest of winter ground when lesser rivals have cried enough. A horse like Pendil or The Dikler in the 1970s, Desert Orchid or Carvill’s Hill a decade or so later, or Denman lugging top weight to victory in the Hennessy – when it still was the Hennessy, back in 2009.
Or, in the here and now, a horse like Mr Vango, the second-favourite for Saturday’s Welsh Grand National at Chepstow. Even in a year when Harry Redknapp has a live runner in the King George VI Chase at Kempton a day earlier, a win for Mr Vango this weekend would quite possibly be the most popular and heartwarming result of the entire festive racing programme.
Everything about Sara Bradstock’s nine-year-old is defiantly, and enchantingly, old-school, from his massive frame and engine to the amount of time he has been given to develop and mature.
He is the latest in a long line of proper, old-fashioned steeplechasers to emerge from the historic Old Manor Stables, near Wantage in Oxfordshire, which stretches all the way back to the legendary Golden Miller, the only horse to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup five times in a row in the 1930s, and also includes three Grand National winners trained at the yard by the late Tim Forster in the 1970s and 1980s. More recently, it was home to the magnificent half-brothers, Carruthers and the 2015 Gold Cup winner, Coneygree, who were both trained by Bradstock alongside her late husband, Mark, and bred by her father, the journalist, broadcaster and one-time amateur jockey, Lord Oaksey.
In a modern age of jumping when young chasing prospects change hands for six-figure sums, Mr Vango was a “store” horse that – by design – did not line up for a race of any kind until he was a six-year-old.
Plenty of his rivals on Saturday were snapped up for big money as four- or five-year-olds after showing form over fences in an Irish point-to-point or in the French provinces, to race for owners who look for an immediate return on their investment. Mr Vango was sold as a foal for €7,000 (£6,000) in November 2016, but then disappeared from view for more than five years before winning a Cambridgeshire point-to-point in February 2022. That was a few days before he was sold to join the Bradstock stable for £30,000, a relative pittance in modern jumping.
Mr Vango was a winner for the yard over hurdles but had such size and strength that he was always going to be a much better chaser. His second race over fences was a 60-length success on bottomless ground in the Devon National at Exeter in February 2024, a few weeks before Mark Bradstock died.
Sara Bradstock is now in her second full season as the sole licence-holder at Old Manor, and her children, Lily and Alfie, are also important members of a team that is dedicated to “keeping the legendary Bradstock magic alive”.
In her first season, she saddled six winners from 17 runners, a remarkable strike-rate of 35%, that included a perfect three-from-three campaign by Mr Vango with wins in the London National at Sandown, the Peter Marsh Chase at Haydock and the Midlands Grand National at Uttoxeter.
The Grand National itself is now an obvious end-of-season target for Mr Vango, as his stirring, front-running success under top weight at Uttoxeter was enough to push his rating well past the cut-off point for recent Nationals. He was raised a further 3lb, to 155, after a battling second place over the National fences on his return to action at Aintree earlier this month, but can race off his old mark of 152 on Saturday.
Elegant Escape, who won off 157 in 2018, and Native River – a subsequent Gold Cup winner, no less – who won off 151 in 2016, have both defied similar marks in recent years, but a whole host of strong opponents with far less weight on their backs will be doing their utmost to stop Mr Vango doing the same.
The King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day looks like one of the strongest renewals for years, rich with established top-class chasers and fast-improving novices alike. The Savills Chase at Leopardstown on Sunday is expected to pit March’s Gold Cup winner, Inothewayurthinkin, against Galopin Des Champs, the Cheltenham hero in the previous two seasons.
But for the steeplechasing purists, there may be nothing this Christmas to rival the sight of the magnificent, front-running Mr Vango, setting off with three-and-three-quarter miles of Welsh turf ahead of him to try to jump and gallop his rivals into submission.
