Cornelius Lysaght reflects on Midnight Shadow's stirring Paddy Power Gold Cup success for Sue Smith and Ryan Mania on Saturday.
After Ryan Mania breathed a sigh of relief that Midnight Shadow had narrowly lasted home in the Paddy Power Gold Cup, his thoughts turned quickly to the horse’s trainers.
From their ‘where-there’s-muck-there’s brass’-style stables sprawling on Bingley Moor, West Yorkshire, Sue Smith and her legendary former showjumper-husband Harvey have played a variety of significant roles in the 32-year-old’s life and career.
No stable has provided Mania with more wins, on stages big and small.
Like when the jockey became the first from Scotland in over a century to triumph in the Grand National on 66/1 chance Aurora’s Encore in 2013, or when Vintage Clouds gave British racing one of only five results to shout about at the Cheltenham Festival of 2021.
And then there have been dozens of more run-of-the-mill successes for the combination around jump racing’s northern circuit from Carlisle to Hexham to Kelso.
But the Smiths were also, as Mania himself put it, “left high and dry” when weight issues and domestic problems led him to call time on his riding career eighteen months after that memorable day at Aintree.
Despite the suddenness of the news, they insisted they would be there in the event of a change of heart, and after nearly five years out of the sport, employed by a number of fox hunts – during which time his weight ballooned to nearly fourteen stone – they were true to their word.
Being able to repay their support has meant a lot.
He said: "I was waking up every morning eleven-stone and I know that if I’d tried a bit harder I could have sorted it [his weight] out, but at the time my personal life wasn’t great and everything got on top of me.
“Something had to give, and that was it, the riding. I couldn’t do it anymore.
“I had been thinking about it for a while, but when I did decide it was very sudden and very last-minute which I regret.
“I went down to see Sue and Harvey and had some dinner with them, not sure how they’d react, and they said that the door was always open.
“I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but when I came out of retirement they showed they meant it, and I’m very grateful.”
While Sue Smith was at Cheltenham to celebrate a notable southern scalp for jumping in the north with Midnight Shadow’s owners Aafke and Cyril Clarke, her 82-year-old husband stayed at home with their string of fifty horses.
Mania is first-choice jockey at Craiglands Farm, a role he also fulfils for trainer Sandy Thomson to whose stepdaughter Annie he is married with two young children.
While thinking of the obvious delight and pride that Harvey Smith will have felt, Mania smiled at the prospect of some detailed analysis from afar of his riding performance.
“I’m hoping he’s got nothing to slag me off for, he said. “He’ll probably tell me that I got the last fence [when Midnight Shadow pecked on landing] wrong.
“He offers genius pieces of advice, and even in the paddock at Sedgefield the other day he was telling me ‘you’ve got to meet your first fence right because you’ve got a few wrong lately’.
“Things like that: it’s not him trying to be difficult, he just wants you to switch on and he just wants to help.”
Pausing for a moment, he added:
“Sue and Harvey have shown me great trust and support, and hopefully this goes just some way to pay them back, but I’ll never pay back that debt”.
With results like this, they may feel more than repaid.
