Hewick hacks up in Sandown finale to illustrate Shark's taste for a bargain

Who would have thought the soundtrack to the final day of the British jumps season would be a 30-year-old song by The Wonder Stuff? "Oh wow, look at me now," they chirped back in 1991. "I'm buying Grade 3 winners for the price of a cow . . ."

It was Shark Hanlon who could make that claim in the wake of Hewick's eight-length success in Saturday's bet365 Gold Cup, the horse having cost €850 at auction in 2017, a very reasonable price even for a cow. Assuming there's a bovine equivalent of Galileo, you're not picking up his progeny for less than a bag of sand these days.

Anyway, Hanlon's comment opened up a new frontier in post-race bragging, to the immense delight of journalists and headline-writers. The challenge now is for someone to land a big 'un with a horse bought for sheep-money, possibly named 'Ewephoria'.