The Jersey Evening Post's Rory Paddock scoops £4,000 jumps naps prize on dramatic final day

The jumps trainers' title was not the only battle that dramatically went down to the wire last Saturday as the Coral/Racing Post naps jumps competition did too, with Rory Paddock of the Jersey Evening Post securing a last-gasp victory.

Paddock, 36, started the final day £5.14 behind Melissa Jones of the Daily Express, but ironically it was the Flat which helped him turn the tables when the Dylan Cunha-trained Waistcoat scored at Leicester at 8-1. Paddock finished with a winning profit of £31.98, just £3.86 ahead of Jones (£28.12).

It was Paddock's first win in the daily naps competition and banished the memories of an agonising defeat for his team in the Flat version in 2023.

Paddock said: "I tried my best to keep my feet on the ground, as no matter how good you are at picking a winner there's always something that'll bring you back to earth.

"What made it more anxious was just after Waistcoat won there were still people with naps to go who could potentially win. I'd seen it all before when someone tipped Art Power to win at 40-1 on Champions Day to snatch away victory. I knew how cruel it could be."

He added: "I needed a winner at 9-2 or bigger to even be in with a shout. Waistcoat opened up at 100-30 on Saturday morning, so I thought my chances had gone. It was only when I put the television on to watch it 20 minutes before the race that he had drifted to 7s. You double-guess yourself when you see a horse drift so much, but when he won at 8s I was thinking it was game on!"

Paddock's success on the Flat last month proved key. 

He said: "The horse who got me back into contention was another Flat horse on Good Friday. David Simcock's Hitched won at 22-1, then I didn't have a single nap winner until Saturday.

"You'd have loved to have had the winner of the bet365 Gold Cup in a blaze of glory, but when it gets that close it needs to be a horse who I’m more confident will win. Waistcoat was in a shortlist of three, and the other two lost."

Paddock, who received a winning prize of £4,000, runs racing-daily.com alongside his role for the Jersey Evening Post.

"To have £4,000 in your back pocket is great, but it was more about the prestige of winning," he said. "I've carved out my own niche. I'm a small fish in a large pond, so to do something like this is a big pat on the back that I do belong in this industry."

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