BRAVERY made a fairytale start since joining North Yorkshire handler David O'Meara when denying Ryan Moore a four-timer on Oh This Is Us in the Betway Lincoln Handicap at Doncaster.

Danny Tudhope made the bold move of switching from his high draw of 20 to go right across to the favoured far side aboard the four-year-old colt, who was fourth in last season' s Irish 2000 Guineas when trained by Aidan O'Brien.

It paid off as Bravery (20/1), bought for 44,000 guineas at the Tattersalls Autumn Sales, proved a shrewd purchase as the son of Galileo showed his class by denying Oh This Is Us by a neck to spoil a massive gamble on the 7/2 favourite.

Donncha was (7/1) was another neck away in third, with 2015 Lincoln winner Gabrial (16/1) just half a length away in fourth.

Tudhope said: "The key to this horse is just to get him to switch off as he can be a bit keen in his races."

O'Meara said: "He travelled well. He's run as far as a mile and a half in Ireland so it was a bit of a guessing game whether a mile would be too sharp for him. He ran well in a lot of good races in Ireland so this would be a drop in class for him.

"I'm really happy with him. It's great. I thought it was a fantastic ride. After the Spring Mile, Danny said he was going to bite the bullet and take him over to the far side. He purposefully missed the break, which helped get him settled, and he made a beeline to get over there.

"It was a very confident ride, because he hadn't ridden much in the winter but he's obviously not rusty. He'd been working with Mondialiste and Custom Cut and when he (Custom Cut) ran well earlier I thought he'd run a big race.

"His owner isn't here so I'll have a chat with him before mentioning targets, hopefully we can go back up in class. At £44,000, he looks a good buy."

Tudhope added: "It was impossible to know what sort of a race he'd run, to be honest, as we didn't know much about him.

"After the Spring Mile I'd said to David I'd take him over there, just to get him settled more than anything, and I managed to get him switched off. He looks an exciting horse, hopefully we can go back up in class."

SIGH OF RELIEF

Bookmakers breathed an almighty sigh of relief as Bravery saved them from multi-million pound liabilities on Ryan Moore by inching out Oh This Is Us in the Betway Lincoln.

Moore had taken the first three races on Tupi, Ballet Concerto and Kool Kompany at accumulative odds of 575/1, causing panic in the bookmaking ranks ahead of the first big race of the turf season.

The price on Oh This Us tumbled and he was sent off 7/2 favourite, and for a while it looked like being a dream result for punters.

Barry Orr, spokesman for Betfair, said: "We were staring into a Moore-made vortex of never-seen-before proportion and it's probably safe to assume that Moore getting chinned by a neck on Oh This Is Us was an industry swing of around £40 million.

''Annie Power's unfortunate tumble in Cheltenham (in 2015) went down in bookmaking history as an industry saver, but pictures of Bravery will be going up in trading rooms up and down the land tonight.''

Coral alone claim they would have incurred losses of £3 million had Oh This Is Us hung on and delivered a 2,591/1 four-timer.

"Ryan Moore's 575/1 treble made it a very bad day for bookmakers but make no mistake a victory for Oh This Is Us would have turned a bad day into one of the worst racing days ever in betting history," said Coral spokesman Simon Clare.

"This was very much a traditional betting-shop drama with thousands of small stakes recreational Saturday punters putting Lucky 15s, Yankees, and multiples on the TV mounts of the punters' most popular jockey, Ryan Moore. As it is, these Ryan Moore backers have had a very good day indeed but just missed out on a massive pay-day in the last few strides of the Lincoln.

"Britain's bookies will be toasting Bravery long into the night, but we weren't feeling brave during that last furlong, in fact we were panicking as Ryan Moore hit the front on Oh This Is Us. Paying out many millions of pounds would have been the worst way possible to go into Grand National week. That was possibly the most valuable photograph in betting history."

Other bookies told a similar tale.

Paddy Power spokesman Paul Binfield said: "That was a very important neck as it saved us seven figures. There is a God!"

Pat Cooney of bet365 tweeted: "Don't do hype, but take it from me, that Lincoln result was biggest swing in our @bet365 history, Annie Power's fall at Cheltenham a distant 2nd."