IN my book, nothing is tougher than a tough mare, and the Fox-Pitts’ Snow Leopardess is metal. On Saturday, through a combination of grit and talent, we watched the next chapter of her story unfold over the Grand National fences at Aintree as she became the first ever mare to win the race. Despite a well-documented recovery from injury and giving birth to a foal, when jockey Aiden Coleman gave her the long rein, she flowed over the fences with her extraordinary jump, to win by a whisker despite the punishing conditions.

Injury

Snow Leopardess was bred by the late Oliver Fox-Pitt and his wife Marietta, who recently transferred ownership to their son Andrew. Snow Leopardess by Martaline, won on her debut bumper for trainer Charlie Longsdon. She won the mares’ hurdle final at Newbury and the Prix Grandlieu at Auteuil in 2017. It was there she picked up a tendon injury which was to alter her trajectory, but not her steely characteristic. Longsdon says of her recovery: “Snow spent time in the spa with the Fox-Pitts in Kent and was healing well until she was a little over-enthusiastic in the field and set herself back again.

“After a shocker in Newbury, she placed second in Doncaster over fences,” Longsdon recounts. “But she came off that run with some fibre damage in her previously injured leg. So she was sent to Paul Roche’s yard in Ireland for recuperation where amongst other things, he spent time swimming her off a pier to help with her injury.”

The Fox-Pitts took the opportunity to breed her during the break, and she was successfully covered by Derby winner Sir Percy. The Fox-Pitts have maintained the line of Snow Leopardess for five generations, beginning with Elopement filly Ysolda. Ysolda became a four-time winner and placed in Ascot’s prestigious Blue Seal Stakes. Crammed with winners’ DNA, this dam line also produced mare Tintagel, who won the Prix Corrida and Prix Fille de l’Air in 1979.

Spanning disciplines

The line also gave Melion, a multiple winner in the Prix Messidor and Le Djinn, who won on the flat and over hurdles and went chasing too, winning the Grand Prix de Bordeaux and the Prix Robert Hennessy.

With a passion for horses spanning disciplines, the athleticism of the Ysolda dam line was engaged in both racing and eventing by the Fox-Pitts through Melion, who evented at Bramham with both Marietta and her son, British eventing Olympian, William Fox-Pitt.

Snow Leopardess’s dam, Queen Soraya, continued the family line. Trained by Henrietta Knight, she won two bumpers and two hurdles but unfortunately broke down in her first chase. Today, nine-year-old daughter Snow Leopardess is proving this DNA is relentless in its power and jump across generations. “She’s amazing,” says Fox-Pitt. “The day she was born, she just sort of got up, stood up as if she was saying, ‘Right, this is it!’ and got on with it.”

Snow Leopardess gave birth to a filly in 2019, and Longdon reveals she appears to be showing all of the qualities of her mother. Snow Leopardess was back in gentle work under saddle with the foal still at foot, following on in the field. After weaning, Snow Leopardess returned to Longsdon and came back over hurdles. For a mare to complete the transition from nursing dam to back on track is rare, but come back in style she did with her incredible Becher Chase win last weekend.

Show jumping stallion

The Sir Percy filly foal was not the only ambition of Marietta Fox-Pitt’s breeding programme, and along with dreams of more racing success, it has been Fox-Pitt’s vision to breed event horses from the line. This summer, she first attempted embryo transfer with Snow Leopardess but the attempts failed and so Fox-Pitt engaged her in the Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) process, an IVF technique in which a single sperm is injected into the centre of an egg.

“The process has successfully achieved two embryos to the number one show jumping stallion in the world, Chacco-Blue,” Longsdon reveals. For anyone with an interest in eventing, or breeding in general, this mating can’t help but fire up the heart rate. For 2021 and for the fifth consecutive year, Chacco-Blue is ranked the best show jumping stallion in the world. Although he died in 2012, the generations born at the end of the 2000s continue to enable him to hold the top spot. Leading the way is Tokyo Olympic Champion Explosion W.

Chacco-Blue is 44.8% thoroughbred making the Snow Leopardess offspring pretty much three-quarters thoroughbred, just the ticket on most modern eventers’ wish list. What Fox-Pitt has imagined and is close to making real, is a bold and thrilling cross from two athletes at the top of their separate disciplines.

When I ask Longsdon about any changes in Snow Leopardess on or off the track since foaling or IVF, he is resolute: “She has never shown any difference. She is exactly the same as before. She loves her jumping, and if she is not right, she will tell you. They are a tough family; the whole family have won races, and her brother Parramount, by Mount Nelson, who is in training with me, is showing similar talent; he won a bumper in spring.”

Grand National

There has barely been mention of Snow Leopardess this week without the inevitable chat about the Grand National; Longsdon is cautious in his response when I ask him if he would like to run her or not, should the choice be his: “I’ve got no strong opinions either way. She went around the Aintree jumps nicely, so you can only think she’d have a chance. She’s at 147 now and can enter, but it is four months away. So we will sit on it until the Grand National weights are out and perhaps aim her for a graded hurdle race in January.”

Having faith in a mare that has already had two injuries to a leg can’t be easy, even one as tough as her, and injury is sometimes in the back of Longsdon’s mind as he admits: “You can’t help but get a bit worried on the approach to a big race, but she has regular physiotherapy and chiropractor visits from Mrs Fox-Pitts long-trusted team. Getting her back to this level of form is a big testament to the team with the issues she had.”

In the early summer of 2021, Marietta Fox-Pitt set out a plan for Snow Leopardess following her ICSI procedure: “I’m going to put her back in training in autumn and race her next season. After that, it’ll probably be one more season and then breed from her.”

Whether this will include the big one at Aintree in 2022 remains to be seen, and she may very well be in training alongside her daughter, but until then, Snow Leopardess demands things just the way she likes them at Longsdon’s yard: “She knows she is the Queen. She’s pretty stubborn – she never wants to go on the horsebox, but she always wants to get her head down to grass in the field, even if it’s pouring with rain.”

I guess it’s the soft ground.