This time last year in these very magazine pages, our own Ronan Groome highlighted Corach Rambler as one of his Five To Follow. True to form, he wasn’t wrong.

Bought for just €17,000 at the Goffs UK November PTP Sale in 2020 by Michael Scudamore, Corach Rambler is now unbeaten at both Cheltenham and Aintree, a two-time Ultima Chase winner and last year’s Randox Grand National hero.

This season Corach Rambler had a familiar first-time-out wobble at Kelso in October before rallying at Haydock in the Betfair Chase, finishing a respectable third behind Royale Pagaille and Bravemansgame. There’s no wobble insight for Team Corach now though, at ArIary House Stables, home of Lucinda Russell Racing, eyes remain firmly on the Cheltenham horizon and the Gold Cup is the destination.

“I suppose after the Grand National, I didn’t know where we were going to go with him,” relays an upbeat Russell. “All you really think is that he’s gone up in a handicap and if he’s ever going to run in the National again. I don’t like running horses to drop them in the handicap, I sometimes think that disillusions them, and he’s the sort of horse that would be hard to drop in the handicap anyway, so we decided he was going to go for conditions races and a chance at the Gold Cup, even if he was placed in it, we’d be delighted.

“He’s a truly remarkable horse and we’ll be using the Gold Cup as a sort of warm-up for the Grand National. We had thought about the cross-country race but again that’s another challenge for him and I think he’s quite happy jumping the ordinary fences.

Ball rolling

Since the big win at Aintree with Corach, Lucinda and her partner Peter Scudamore knew that the number of horses they have was going to go up, and go up it did. Numbers have risen from about 80 horses to over 120. It’s not just horse power that has risen either, man power has gone up and an expansion through an alliance with Peter’s son, trainer Michael Scudamore, has simultaneously lifted some pressure and added some fire to boot.

“Michael has been a fantastic asset up here; it’s just great having the pressure relieved off me.

Anyone who’s trained knows what it’s like, it’s just having that pressure divided and relieved is fantastic. We’ve got fantastic people working here, we’re really pleased with the way it’s going. Having Tom [Scudamore, former jockey and Peter’s son] have a pre-training yard in Herford has also really helped, our overflow horses go there and they get a really good education, and I think Tom is really enjoying it.

“We spent last year buying a lot of horses. We buy a lot of Irish point-to-pointers and some from France. We like to buy them with the view of chasing in mind. We’ve got quite a few novice hurdlers this year that I just can’t wait to go chasing with next year and that might make it up into a festival listed class next year over fences. I’m thinking about Primoz, Choose A Copper, we’ve a nice horse, Inox Allen, that’s run well over hurdles, we’re just really lucky we’ve got some lovely lovely horses, we’re so looking forward to the future. It’s funny, isn’t it? Someone said once, “Winners don’t make you happy” and I think that’s because you have a winner but you just want more. That’s definitely the attitude here, to keep the ball rolling.”

Exciting times

Catching plenty of eyes and hoping for some Cheltenham glory is seven-year-old Irish-bred Apple Away. Russell speaks enthusiastically of her: “She’s a great staying mare and I think we’re half looking at the Ultima in Cheltenham. It might be quite a nice run for her. She’s also entered into the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase.

“I wonder where we go after this with her? She’s a very, very good novice, she’s more of a stayer than she is a speed horse, that’s why we’re looking at the other options at Aintree. We might even enter her in the Scottish National. That’s the sort of race that might really suit her as a novice. She will stay, her jumping is getting pretty neat and regular and so it’s exciting times with her. She’s a super filly and it would be lovely if there was three-mile mares’ novice, that would be ideal, but I think we might have to step her up a little bit further than that.”

Also on the road to Cheltenham is smart type Giovinco who struggled a little after close races at the beginning of the season.

“At the moment the aim is to take Giovinco to Cheltenham. He is entered in the Turners and Brown Advisory Novice Chases and we’ll just see a little bit closer to the time. To me, he’s a three-miler ‘round a track like Aintree, and maybe we’ll just go for two miles four furlongs around Cheltenham. He’s a very classy horse, he’s by Walk in The Park and needs slightly careful handling, but I think as he gets more experience he’s going to end up as being one of our very good chasers.”

Mitigating circumstances

And what of Ahoy Senor who was pulled up in his last two races and was unlucky with a snapped leather in the Paddy Power Cotswold Chase at the end of January? Where do the team think he’ll grace the Cheltenham turf this year?

“We had such mixed emotions after the Cotswold. We were absolutely delighted with the way Ahoy Senor ran. I thought he jumped better. He’s different now, he can settle rather than having to be in the lead, and actually he jumps a lot better in behind, a lot straighter. I was absolutely gutted for poor Stephen (Mulqueen) whose stirrup leather snapped four out. And, just as the race began, Ahoy Senor came back on the bridle and probably did a little bit too much, he probably should have waited a little bit longer. But credit to Stephen for staying on over the last fence, it’s not easy, and I think some jockeys might have even pulled up after their leather snapped. So I have to say thank you to Stephen.

“I suppose saying that though, you’re gutted that his leather snapped, on the other hand he hasn’t had a hard race. Coming into the Cotswold I would have said that Ahoy Senor was 85% fit and ready. I think we can get him even better now and hopefully produce him spot on for the Festival. He is still entered in the Gold Cup and also the Ryanair, and we might have to make a decision about which race he runs in. There is a little bit of chat that we might go for the Ryanair, but we’ll see. It’s not a decision to rush into really.”

“He’s a horse that I definitely wouldn’t be writing off. He hasn’t had the greatest of autumns. He’s always been a horse that’s taken a bit of time to get going but he definitely has run below form. He’s had mitigating circumstances however, one of which has been he got a very bad overreach injury before his first run this season. We thought we had that patched up but it didn’t quite work and then it became infected. Then after his next run it sort of burst out at his heel, so he’d had a bit of a baptism of fire really this season.

“I definitely wouldn’t give up on him, I think he’s a very classy horse. He is exuberant but he hasn’t been as exuberant this autumn. I feel that on the gallops at home he seems to be coming back to himself, so he’s not a horse I would write off yet!”

Russell says she has a couple of horses for the handicaps at Cheltenham and there’s certainly palpable excitement over some of the novices coming up. “We’ve got a little juvenile hurdler called Rory The Cat, who was very cheaply bought off the flat where he won a couple of times. We’ve run a couple of juvenile hurdles in Musselburgh, if he got up high enough in the handicap he could go for the juvenile handicap. He’s a tough little horse, he’s a cracking little type, so he’s one we could look at.”

According to psychology graduate Russell, Cheltenham is the professional’s Gold Cup, “Everyone that’s in horse racing really understands about it, and it’s really exciting. The Grand National probably has a bit of a wider reach, a bigger, worldwide audience but I think Cheltenham is the one that makes you most proud; if you win at Cheltenham, it’s about respect from your peers, so for that reason it’s somewhere we respect and crave to be able to win at. That’s what makes it so special for us, I know that for Scu it was a very special time when he was riding. For me, it’s what we really concentrate on, as soon as Christmas is passed, you get yourself revved up for Cheltenham and Aintree is sort of for the next level.”

Surprisingly, Russell doesn’t follow the familiar pattern of coming from a horsey family yet she is as good a horsewoman as you could wish to meet and her instincts for horses and love of racing reverberate in her willingness to talk about racing as much as she can. She says she feels talking helps support the sport she loves. Talking the talk is one thing, walking the walk is another, and Corach Rambler embodies it all.

“Corach really is a horse of a lifetime – I mean he’s part of our family,” Russell enthuses. “Obviously we don’t own him, the owners [The Ramblers syndicate] are absolutely wonderful people, they adore him and we have almost a shrine to Corach with all those trophies here at ArIary. He really is a super horse, he’s a horse that picks up on emotions really quickly and because of that he is a huge favourite in the yard. You can go in there if you’re happy or if you’re sad.

“It’s funny, if you look at any of the photographs that have been taken of him, you’ll find that he’s always looking at the camera. And since the National he’s got even better at that. He knows when to prick his ears and look into the distance so that he looks beautiful. He’s a remarkable horse, very sensitive. He’s a horse that makes a lot of people very happy, especially Scu who rides him every day. Even if Scu is tense or anxious or worried about something, or grumpy about something, he comes back in after riding Corach and seems very happy. He’s just a wonderful, wonderful horse.

“One of the highlights of my morning is feeding, I love going around and feeding the horses and connecting with them all. Corach is amazing, he always neighs at me. Sometimes when it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, the idea that you’re about to get a whinny from Corach is just fantastic, it’s a lovely part of his personality and something I feel very proud to be able to share.”