Phillips back on track
Richard Phillips received a belated but most welcome Christmas present when General Gossip got his team back on the scoresheet in the skybetvegas.com Novices’ Handicap Hurdle at Wetherby today.
Warren Marston sent General Gossip into the lead going to what had become the the penultimate flight (the second-last was omitted), and though getting tired in the testing ground in the closing stages, he still had four lengths to spare over Young Claude at the line.
Phillips had gone 74 days without a winner, and his assistant Gordon Clarkson said: “There was something going round the yard, like in a lot of other stables, and we have just had to be patient.
“They are coming back now, but they are all needing a run really. Warren said the ground was sticky, but General Gossip stays very well and he has done it well.”
Conditional jockey Gary Berridge, who was unseated from Huka Lodge at the fifth flight, was being attended by paramedics and as a result what would have been the second-last hurdle was missed out.
