ALAN King rounded off the National Hunt season on a high when he trained the winner of the Grade 3 Bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown. Talkischeap was bred by Michael Veale and sold by him and Tom McCarthy as a foal at Goffs for €5,800.

He is from the first crop of Getaway (Monsun), which also includes the Grade 1 winning mare Verdana Blue, and the gelding was reoffered at the Land Rover Sale three years later where Sean Doyle of Monbeg Stables purchased him for €10,500. This looked a bargain when the gelding won three of his four point-to-points for Doyle, who then profited from his £55,000 sale at Cheltenham to Highflyer Bloodstock on behalf of Charlie Dingwall and trainer Alan King.

Talkischeap is now a winner five times for connections, three hurdles and a pair of chases, and Saturday’s success has been the highlight to date. He is the best of a pair of winning offspring from Carrigmoorna Oak (Milan) who was a €6,000 foal purchase by Tom McCarthy at Goffs. The mare is also dam of bumper and point-to-point winner Carrigmoorna Wood (Shantou).

Carrigmoorna Oak is a half-sister to a two-year-old winner and they are out of an unraced mare called Cockney Star (Camden Town), a full-sister to Cockney Lass and Cockney Lad, a pair of runners who excelled under different codes. Cockney Lad was a high-class hurdler who gained his biggest success in the Grade 1 AIG Europe Champion Hurdle at Leopardstown, while Cockney Lass won the Group 2 (nowadays Group 1) Tattersalls Rogers Gold Cup. As a broodmare she is best known for her Grade 1 Punchestown novice chase winning grandson Great Field (Great Pretender).

Although this is principally a flat pedigree on breeding, many of its best runners did their winning over jumps. Warbug (Anwar), the fourth dam of Talkischeap, bred the listed Galway hurdle winner Trinity Bug (Bonne Noel), was grandam of Grade 1 Punchestown Champion 4YO Hurdle winner Seldom Dry (Rarity) and Tote Cesarewitch winner Kayudee (Nebbiolo), and is third dam of the Listed Gerry Feilden Hurdle winner Ifandbutwhynot (Raise A Grand).