Nine times winner Finest View bids us farewell in brave fashion at Bangor

Finest View, who has been a fantastic racemare for David and Kathleen Holmes’s Pitchall Farm Stud in Warwickshire, has been retired after producing her customary brave effort at Bangor yesterday in rain-softened ground which has never played to her strengths.

Nine times a winner from 33 races, Finest View, who will celebrate her ninth birthday in January, has only once failed to finish – at Warwick in 2023 when she was disputing the lead at the final fence – and, while jockey Tom Cannon accepted the situation some way from home, he knows how determined the mare is and and popped her over the final few obstacles safely to bow out with her head held high.

Alan, paying tribute to Finest View, said:”She did us proud over five seasons and now deserves her time back at the stud. She won five chases for us, as well as three hurdle races and a bumper, amassing more than £100,000 in prize money, and she was hugely popular with everyone at Barbury.

“She was a very good mare, too, and after winning four races on the bounce in 2022 she got a nasty bout of colic, from which it took her a long time to recover from. However, she recover she did, and she went on to win five more races and finish second on seven other occasions, so we are all going to miss her.”

Also at Bangor yesterday, The Doyen Chief, though a beaten favourite on his seasonal debut, made a very pleasing return, looking the winner at the final fence, only to land awkwardly, causing jockey Tom Bellamy to lose an iron, the eight-year-old eventually being run out of it in the final 75 yards.