'It feels a damn sight longer' - trainer has first winner for 661 days

When Borders trainer Alison Hamilton had a month without any runners, it gave the former point-to-point rider the opportunity to change things up at her Denholm base. That proved time well spent as she saddled her first winner for 661 days at Newcastle on Thursday.

Hamilton had not sent out a runner since Balranald at Sedgefield on October 6 but struck with the Sean Quinlan-ridden Gun Merchant in the 2m7½f novice handicap chase to end a lean spell of 56 runners without a winner.

Hamilton, who was enjoying her best season under rules since 2013-14 before the drought started in January 2020 joked: "Eighteen months – it feels a damn sight longer than that!

"When you can't quite work out what's wrong it's really hard to fix it. They've just not been firing for whatever reason.

"We've ventilated the whole stables and shifted horses into another barn, which I do think has made a massive difference actually. This is the first one back since so I'm keeping my fingers crossed."

Watch Gun Merchant's win here

Gun Merchant, a £20,000 purchase out of Gordon Elliott's yard last September, was winning on his tenth start for owners Mr and Mrs Byers, the same connections that provided Hamilton with her last winner when Skyhill completed a four-timer at Kelso two seasons ago.

"Funnily enough Gun Merchant actually ran in the same point as Skyhill, who had a good season for us a couple of years ago.

"The Byers are a lovely couple. They've been very loyal. It's great that you have people involved who give you a lot of support and I can’t thank them enough for that. They have the good days and they enjoy it. They'll go home and watch the replay about 74 times, which is really nice."

Alison Hamilton (far left) and connections with her last winner SkyhillCredit: Grossick Racing 07710461723

With the northern pointing season starting at Hexham at the end of November, Hamilton is looking to build on the return to winning ways. "The one thing about racing is everybody's so nice," she added. "They're like, 'Don't worry your luck will turn. You're doing the right thing, keep going.' But I'm too competitive to want to just turn up on the day.

"I think when you've had a bad run you want to make sure everything is done as you want it to be so it's just better trying to keep things going yourself."

The celebrations for Hamilton, who has been training horses under rules for 20 years, will be slightly different from years gone by. "I've got to get up and muck them all out in the morning," the trainer said. "The downside of working for yourself!

"I used to remember days sitting here where you'd have a young horse or a homebred that would run really well and get placed and you'd be like let's just line the bottles up. The days of drinking and bouncing the next day aren't quite the same."

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