Racing: Skycab gives Gifford the perfect exit

It was an afternoon in the sun when memories mattered as much as the present. Fifty years ago tomorrow, an 11-year-old farmer's son made his first appearance as a jockey, riding into sixth in an apprentice contest at Newmarket. Here yesterday, Josh Gifford earned the greatest ovation of the day when his final runner as a trainer, Skycab, produced the perfect ending to a glorious half-century.

Victory seemed improbable as Skycab laboured into the home straight in the closing steeplechase. But after Richard Johnson had fallen off a stumbling Wave Rock two strides after the penultimate fence, and Ruby Walsh on Devon View uncharacteristically had dropped his whip at about the same point, Leighton Aspell was able to conjure the fairy tale.

The knowledgeable crowd ran and scrambled to pack round the unsaddling enclosure and pay tribute to a man who scaled the heights as both jockey and trainer. And the three cheers that were given to the 61-year-old Gifford as, in unashamed tears, he led in winner No 1,587, came straight from the heart.

In the saddle, Gifford was four times jump champion, and, although no titles came his way after he took over his former guv'nor Ryan Price's stables at Findon, he achieved immortality by patching up Aldaniti for Bob Champion to ride to win the emotional 1981 Grand National.

Gifford will hand the reins of the yard over to his son, Nick, tomorrow. "I've no regrets," he said, "the sport has been very good to me and I've had a great life in it. It has changed since I started, but largely for the better. But it did make me angry when I heard the other day that the bookmakers were saying that they could run three Flat races and a dog race in the time it takes to run a long-distance steeplechase. Money isn't everything; it's still a sport."

Gifford is one of only three men (Stan Mellor and David Nicholson are the others) to have won Whitbread Gold Cups both as a jockey, on Larbawn in 1969, and as a trainer, with Shady Deal in 1982.

Ad Hoc, winner of yesterday's 47th edition of the race that is the traditional last hurrah of the jump season, became the fourth horse to take it for the second time when he scored by nine lengths under Walsh. Two years ago the Paul Nicholls-trained gelding took the marathon under its last Whitbread tag; now it is backed by attheraces. But the challenge is the same, three miles and five furlongs punctuated by 24 tricky obstacles, and Ad Hoc's name now sits proudly next to those of Larbawn, Diamond Edge and Topsham Bay.

The greatest problem for Walsh was restraining his partner, who was throughout floating enthusiastically over the fast ground he loves. The Irishman finally committed him just after the third-last fence, unleashing Ad Hoc through a gap between Gunther McBride and Frosty Canyon. "I was trying to slow him down most of the way," said Walsh, "as I just didn't want to be in front too soon. There were still a crowd of us in contention at the Pond fence, and when the split appeared I thought I'd better get through it, as I wouldn't get a better opportunity."

Ad Hoc cheerfully pinged the last two obstacles and scampered clear up the hill. Stormez, the 9-2 favourite, passed four horses on the run-in to take second from Gunther McBride, with Frosty Canyon fourth.

Ad Hoc's next port of call may be Paris, where a tilt at the Grand Steeplechase de Paris at Auteuil is under consideration for Sir Robert Ogden's colour-bearer, who unseated Walsh in the Grand National. "He came home from Aintree covered in cuts and scrapes," said Nicholls. "But he began to bloom again in the last 10 days. This is his time of year."

Yesterday's £87,000 prize would not have been enough for Nicholls to overtake Stormez's handler, Martin Pipe, in the race for the trainers' title, even had the latter, who became champion for the 13th time, not netted another £58,000 with Seebald in the Queen Mother Celebration Chase. But the one-two confirmed the West Country's ascendancy as a training base, and for the first time both men topped £2 million in prize money.

Tony McCoy's never-give-up ride on Seebald to reel in Cenkos in the two-mile chase was a reminder, if any was needed, why he finished the campaign as top jockey for the eighth time, and Pipe's chief patron, David Johnson, headed the owner's leaderboard.