Nigel Hawke believes the testing ground was a major contributor to Blowers becoming the first 300/1 winner in the modern era in Britain when scoring at Exeter on Thursday.
His three-quarter length defeat of favourite On The Bayou in the Priceup.Bet Maiden Hurdle carved out a place in turf history for the five-year-old who is set to return to the same track for his next race.
Speaking on Friday’s Nick Luck Daily Podcast the trainer said: “It’s not rocket science I said yesterday he’s had two runs, is a nice horse, a brute of a horse, all of 18 hands plus. He ran once last year in a bumper around Larkhill and I think he was backed down to favouritism, there was certainly money for him, and his breathing cut out.
“That happens so he had the belt and braces done, no problems at all, and came to us.
“He’s a very, very difficult horse to train because he’s so big, and he ran at Chepstow a couple of weeks ago and it wasn’t Ella (Herbison’s) fault, the lady who rode him, but he was just too strong for her.
“He just did too much in the first mile and got home in his own time. Obviously, James Best rode him yesterday and we were going to change tactics and try to teach him to settle. But knowing how the race was going to be run at a crawl in bottomless ground, I told James to do the complete opposite, jump him out in front, get him settled in front, and that’s exactly what happened.
“He’s bred for three miles in the mud and he got that ground yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be clever and say I thought he was a good thing but he should have been a 33/1 shot and I do think that ground at Exeter, you only meet it once or twice a year, and you don’t know until you run on it what horses can handle that ground.
“He’s very big and very, very strong. You never fight a fighter, and he would be a classic example of that. James is very good on those type of horses, he leaves them alone. At the start he was getting quite difficult and James jumped him off in the right position, gave him an inch of rein, and he settled in front lovely.
“I know a few people who had £2.50 each-way on him, so they were very happy! It sounds silly but you always have people who follow a yard and every time we have a runner they have what I call fun bets on them. If someone had a serious bet on him, he wouldn’t have been 300/1 but there were a lot of happy people in this area last night.”
The inevitable question is where next?
“He’s in at Hereford on Saturday so we’ll see how he is but off the top of my head we’ll probably look at Exeter on New Year’s Day under a penalty and go back to where it worked out for us before.”
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