'Amazing' pony Push The Button on the mark with 50th racecourse victory

On Sunday racing will herald one of its great female competitors when Enable bids for a third Arc victory, but she has some way to go to match the winning record of Push The Button.

Something of a legend on the pony racing circuit, having helped launch the careers of two of the weighing room’s young stars, Push The Button completed a rare half-century when scoring her 50th success in the Charles Owen racecourse series pony races on Sunday.

She is 16, four years older than her rider Thomas Bradburne, but defied her age and a long journey from Lambourn to Musselburgh to secure the landmark victory.

Push The Button was ridden by leading jump jockeys James and Sean Bowen in their pony racing days, when she was trained by their father Peter.

Gee Bradburne now trains Push The Button for a syndicate that includes BBC racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght and Thomas Bradburne's godmother Eve Johnson Houghton.

Gee Bradburne: 'She's been so amazing for so many up-and-coming jockeys'Credit: Edward Whitaker

Gee Bradburne said on Sunday: "She's been so amazing for so many up-and-coming jockeys.

"She travelled up to Musselburgh, nine hours, and she doesn't do particularly well away from home. The ground was softer than she prefers and she was up against Little Anne, who mugged us on the line in the pony race final at York last year. But she managed to nail him on the line in a photo."

Bradburne and her husband Mark, both ex-jump jockeys, have had the pony for three years, having pushed the boat out to buy her from Kate Smith.

"We said we wouldn't be able to afford her but Peter Bowen said 'if you can find a way to do it, you'll never regret it. Find a way'," Gee Bradburne recalled.

"Thomas has been riding her since he was nine and she's phenomenal, very powerful – not quite like a normal kids' pony."

Push The Button, who has also won pony races at point-to-points and pony clubs, will now be aimed at the Charles Owen final at Cheltenham in November.

"She is obviously at the later end of her career and we really try to preserve her," Bradburne said. "The whole point of Musselburgh was for her to have an easy race, which it didn't turn out to be."

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