It's taking a while to sink in that we've just won the Bahrain International Trophy with Spirit Dancer.
It's a fantastic moment for us and to be honest the race itself was easy viewing. When he hit the front he’d gone past the favourite and the fancied ones and I knew my guy wouldn’t stop. And he didn’t. He galloped right to the line.
It's fantastic because we didn’t have a good start to the week. He sweated profusely and we took a blood test, the results of which weren't particularly good. His muscle enzymes were very high. We didn’t do anything with him the next day, we were just trying to give him time to recover and to get some fluids into him.
But he was drinking and eating. Once they’re drinking and eating, you’ve got a chance. It was amazing, I picked the saddle up today and went up to saddle him. I’m a typical trainer, I was looking for good and bad signs, and I thought he looked too fat. Which is crazy because on Monday I felt he was too light.
I would have been more confident about his chance if we hadn’t had that blip earlier in the week. It’s a lesson for anybody travelling a horse – they’re resilient animals.
I am surprised and it’s a fantastic result for everyone. Oisin (Orr) didn’t panic and he actually came in and said he hit the front too soon. When they’re saying that and they’ve won it’s fine, I don’t mind that.
We’ve had a discussion with the Saudi people and there’s a race there in February we’ll have to think about. We’ll get him home first and see how he is. We would have enjoyed the week whatever the result and it definitely won’t go downhill from here anyway!
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