At last! Serial villain and punters' foe Sky Pirate wins on bridle at Cheltenham

There will have been many who thought a Brexit deal was more likely than Sky Pirate ever winning a chase – but the doubters were proved wrong, and stunningly so, at Cheltenham on Saturday.

Throughout his chasing career, Sky Pirate has lived up to his name, regularly behaving like an absolute villain, yet dropped to two miles he was an animal reborn, winning a valuable handicap chase without coming off the bridle.

Few and far between are the occasions when a horse can saunter to victory up the Cheltenham hill, but Sky Pirate needed not even a nudge from the arms of Tom Scudamore, who had recently teamed up with winning trainer Jonjo O'Neill to land the Ladbrokes Trophy aboard Cloth Cap.

Sky Pirate comes home clear of Ibleo to finally win a race over fencesCredit: Edward Whitaker

Sky Pirate, on the other hand, had not won a race since scoring over hurdles in June 2018. Martin Tedham's seven-year-old had lost all ten of his previous races over fences, finishing second in five of them.

That, however, tells only part of the story, for the serial tease has traded at odds-on and been beaten nine times, often seeming sure to win only to leave his backers exasperated. On his most recent five outings he had hit in-running lows of 1.56, 1.58, 1.15, 1.36 and 1.73, on the latter occasion when he cruised into contention in the Paddy Power Gold Cup only to then have an argument with the penultimate fence.

Not so this time. Helped by the furious pace set by Gino Trail, Sky Pirate tanked into the lead just after the final fence and strolled to a three-and-a-half-length defeat of Ibleo.

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"We always kept feeling he was an unlucky horse but I think the trainer had the trip wrong," said O'Neill.

"There were a couple of times we thought he would have won but he has fallen or made a mistake. I think he has just been an unlucky horse. The good thing is he has come good on the right day."

O'Neill added: "I was a bit worried the ground might be a bit tacky but it didn't seem to bother him. The Grand Annual probably would be the right race for him now but we'll just take it steady."

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