JOHN Dance would like to make something clear. Although he hit the headlines early in the new year when expressing his frustration with the sport’s endless infatuation with Cheltenham, he is no festival grinch.
“Obviously it’s a fantastic meeting and everyone loves it, I suppose I was just trying to put across the fact that the focus on it seems a little excessive, to the detriment of the rest of the calendar,” says the prominent owner, a stockbroker based in Newcastle.
“We all complain about certain trainers, with some horses in particular, dodging races throughout the season, but we don’t help that situation as it’s become almost irrelevant if they win them – we only care if they win at Cheltenham, so they’re almost encouraged to skip other meetings.”
Star novice
Dance practises what he preaches, at least. Bravemansgame, the star novice chaser he owns with Bryan Drew, contested six races last season, winning the Grade 1 Challow Novices’ Hurdle at Newbury before finishing third to Bob Olinger in the Grade 1 Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham and second to Ahoy Senor in the Grade 1 Sefton Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree.
He was unbeaten in his first three starts over fences this season, culminating in a decisive victory over Ahoy Senor in the Grade 1 Kauto Star Novices’ Chase at Kempton, and is second favourite behind Galopin Des Champs for the Grade 1 Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase at this year’s festival.
Laurens, the brilliant flat filly who put Dance on the map as an owner, was also boldly campaigned. Bought for £220,000 at the Doncaster Premier Yearling Sale, she ran seven times at three, running second in the 1000 Guineas and winning the Prix Saint-Alary and Prix de Diane in the spring, taking the Matron Stakes and Sun Chariot Stakes after a midsummer break, and contested another six races at four, many against colts.
It was the success of Laurens – who delivered her first foal, an Invincible Spirit colt, last April – who encouraged Dance to become more involved in National Hunt racing.
Injured
“I’d always had a couple of jumpers in training, but it seemed they were either useless or permanently injured,” he says. “Some gave us some good fun, though, such as Im Too Generous. He was off the track for nearly four years with a tendon injury, but Rebecca Menzies brought him back to fitness to win four races, before he did his tendon again.
“We’d got the point that we were reversing our way out of having jumps horses, but in the years I owned Laurens I found I was wishing my life away waiting for the next flat season to start, so I wanted to have a bit more interest over the winter.”
Dance didn’t mess around when getting back into the winter game, taking a half-share in Bravemansgame, who was bought by his trainer Paul Nicholls and agent Tom Malone for a cool £370,000 after being sent out by Donnchadh Doyle to win a maiden point at Lingstown by eight lengths.
“We wanted to give ourselves half a chance of making it worthwhile,” he says. “We didn’t want to have jumps horses for the sake of it, although he smashed through the upper ceiling of the budget that we would usually think of paying for any horse, never mind him.
“Anyway, Paul bought him and thankfully he didn’t have an owner willing to take the whole horse and we were offered half. It’s worked out well as we enjoy racing the horse with Bryan.”
Bravemansgame didn’t immediately justify his huge price tag. After finishing a promising third on his debut at Ascot, he made no show when sixth in a listed bumper at the same track.
“I guess there were a few worries when he was running in those bumpers, though they were high-quality races in fairness,” says Dance. “But we probably ran him on ground that was too soft or too heavy for him at that stage of his life, as he was very raw and still quite weak, so he just wasn’t seeing out the trip. But he’s strengthened up a lot and is able to deal with softer ground now, as he showed at Kempton over Christmas.
Potential
“Maybe we did wonder whether he was everything we’d hoped he would be back then, but as soon as he started hurdling it became obvious that he had a lot of potential, and by his second novice hurdle victory he’d stepped forward a huge amount and we realised we had a decent horse.”
Dance and his wife Jess have since added Mr Glass, a four-time winner who finished third to Constitution Hill in the Grade 1 Tolworth Novices’ Hurdle in January, and the smart novice chaser Jeremy Pass to their jumps string.
So which does he prefer – flat or jumps? “To be honest, I haven’t had much chance to go racing of either kind because of the Covid situation, and haven’t had much chance to see our jumps horses race yet,” he says.
“My father-in-law and I went to Newbury to watch Bravemansgame in the Challow at the end of 2020 and it was f***ing freezing, and we got to see Mr Glass win the French Furze at Newcastle in December but that was in tornado winds and a blizzard.
“Even by winter standards they were two terrible days to be at the races. But, weather aside, there isn’t a huge difference between the flat and the jumps as far as I’m concerned. The big days in both attract good crowds and have similar atmospheres.”
There are differences between the codes that leave Dance a little bewildered, though, such as the Anglo-Irish rivalry at Cheltenham.
“You do seem to notice it more in National Hunt racing,” he reflects. “I don’t remember anyone keeping score at Royal Ascot or other major flat festivals. It’s not something I get into too much. Obviously it wouldn’t be good for Britain or Ireland if it was horrifically one-sided for a sustained period, but I guess it will balance out over time as there’s always an ebb and flow.
“There’ll always be the odd anomaly when one country trounces the other, and it would only be a problem if there was continued dominance by one country year after year – though it’s going to be a hell of a job for the UK to turn around last year’s deficit or even reach parity.”
Dance suggests that his indifference towards the competition between the home and visiting teams might stem from his experiences as a flat owner.
“Maybe it’s because we raced Laurens in Ireland and France as well as Britain, and she faced horses from all over Europe, and it was never an issue,” he says. “I just saw rivals as rivals, I didn’t see the country connected with them, I was only interested in trying to gauge whether they had a better chance than her.”
So he won’t be draping himself in the Union Jack if he is lucky enough to be leading Bravemansgame into the winner’s enclosure at Cheltenham?
“No,” he laughs. “I’ll be celebrating because he’s Bravemansgame and he’s ours, not because he’s trained in the UK.”
The other big difference between the flat and the jumps is, of course, the way in which the Cheltenham Festival casts such a long shadow over the rest of the season in a way that Royal Ascot or the Arc meeting do not.
“It just seems a shame to me that a horse can’t be considered a genuine great, or among the very best, unless they do it at Cheltenham,” says Dance. “I think it’s a bit disparaging to all the other races in the calendar.
“There are lots of great races throughout the jumps season that you dream of winning as an owner, but then you get a good horse and they’re thrown to the wolves and deemed irrelevant unless they win at the Cheltenham Festival.
Royal Ascot
“Laurens didn’t win at Royal Ascot and maybe that, and the lack of a Group 1 victory against colts, are what restricts her from being held up as one of the greats, even though other more highly rated fillies didn’t win as many Group 1s as her. But the interesting thing is, she still became a public favourite despite not winning at one of the big festivals in Britain.”
Dance is no party pooper when it comes to Cheltenham, though. Like any other owner, he is dreaming of festival victory, and he believes Bravemangame has every chance of turning those dreams into reality.
The horse goes there in top form, having carried top weight to victory in a novices' handicap chase at Newbury in mid-February.
“All things being equal, he’s going to Cheltenham and, God willing, Covid circumstances allow us to go to cheer him home,” he says. “I’ve only been to the Festival once as a spectator many moons ago. I didn’t go down to see his drubbing by Bob Olinger in the Ballymore last year unfortunately – or, rather, fortunately – so I’ve yet to savour the meeting as an owner.
“I think he holds a decent chance. He was well beaten last year and flopped next time at Aintree, but I think he’d gone weak by then and was showing the effects of a tough race at Cheltenham, as he never travelled at any point. I wonder if we saw early signs of that at Cheltenham.
“Either way, he’s improved physically since last year, which has helped him take a step forward in terms of form, and he’s so slick over his jumps he arguably gains a length over many of his rivals at each fence.”
Dance is right about the Festival, really. He has every reason to be proud of the brilliant, bold-jumping Bravemansgame, whether he becomes a winner at Cheltenham or not. ?
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