Looking back: Voy Por Ustedes fulfils owner's Cheltenham Festival ambitions

Eyewitness Tales

Sir Robert Ogden's racing manager Barry Simpson looks back to the victory of Voy Por Ustedes in the 2007 Queen Mother Champion Chase

His preparation for the race hadn't been ideal, because he unseated Robert Thornton in the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury – he was generally a spectacular jumper but could put in an occasional poor jump. We thought he'd run a big race there and be a short-priced favourite at Cheltenham, but it was Newbury winner Well Chief who was hot favourite in the Champion Chase – and he fell at the second fence.

We had great faith in the horse – he wasn't over-big, more a neat type – and we knew that if he put in his usual good round of jumping he'd be hard to beat. That's what won him the race, even though he hit the second-last quite hard, but he was able to recover and come up for a big leap at the last and that's what clinched it for him.

Barry Simpson (right) basks in the glory alongside the winning team after Voy Por Ustedes's Champion Chase victoryCredit: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)

I didn't see him jump it 'live', though. I'm a little bit superstitious and preferred to watch those big races on television, on my own. I used to watch through binoculars but when you're tense and excited it's hard to hold them steady. Anyway, he flew the last and I went out on to the grandstand to watch him come up the run-in. A blunder at that stage of the race can often end a horse's chances in the Queen Mother, but he won comfortably enough in the end.