Racing: Miracle worker Pipe resurrects Cyfor

Injury-plagued chaser heads four-timer for trainer but McCoy endures lean pickings as hot favourite flops

As Lazarus conventions go, the winners' enclosure here after the Thomas Pink Gold Cup yesterday was a doozie. Enter, floating on air, two former cripples, Martin Pipe and his charge Cyfor Malta.

"I've thrown away my crutches," called the trainer, on a racecourse for the first time in three months after surgery that necessitated fusing the bones in his right ankle. The injury-plagued horse, whose powerful good looks are in inverse proportion to the fragility of his inner framework, let his foot-perfect performance, and his jockey, Barry Geraghty, do his talking.

"He was on springs, just on springs," said the Irishman. "When he got out of the pack and past horses, he was flying. He came up outside the wings at the last, brave and brilliant. When you ride one like this, you realise why you do it."

The story of Pipe's three-strong assault on the valuable handicap, a race he has made his own, is simply told: Chicuelo, the 2-1 favourite and the choice of Tony McCoy, first beaten; Exit Swinger first to fall; Cyfor Malta, at 16-1 the least fancied of the three, first, by five lengths after that final pinging, Pegasus leap settled a duel that Poliantas was losing anyway. Cyfor Malta danced cheerfully up the hill, his four white socks flashing in the damp gloom, with the loose Exit Swinger doing his little bit for the cause by providing company without competition. Seven lengths adrift of the runner-up, Wave Rock caught Foly Pleasant for the minor honours.

It was Cyfor Malta's second victory in the valuable Grade Three handicap. His first came four years ago, between his fabulous, youthful display of contempt for the Aintree fences in the John Hughes Trophy and the Pillar Chase back here, the race that truly announced his entry to the big league. But shortly afterwards he sustained the leg injury that confined him to his box for months and kept him off the track for a year.

Yesterday's contest was only the seventh race for the nine-year-old, who carries the colours of Pipe's chief patron, David Johnson, since he re-entered the fray in January last year. "We are absolutely elated to see him back at this sort of level," said Pipe. "He carried nearly top weight [11st 9lb] and to win like he did was exceptional, but then he has always had more than a touch of class. A performance like this repays all the patience we have had to have and is a tribute to the whole team."

This was Pipe's sixth victory in the contest, and his third in a row, after Lady Cricket and Shooting Light. Beau Ranger in 1987 and Challenger du Luc in 1996 were the others. Cyfor Malta is the fifth horse to have won it twice, after Fortria, Gay Trip, Half Free and Bradbury Star.

As jumping was the winner's forte, it proved Chicuelo's nemesis. The slight six-year-old, who was low through the air throughout, lost most of his battles with the birch, struggled throughout and was pulled up before two out. His efforts were poor reward for McCoy's recent diet of cups of sweet tea and the odd Jaffa Cake to waste to ten stone and a pound.

But there was consolation of a sort on the day for the Ulsterman, successful on Tarxien in the opening novice chase and on Don Fernando in the closing juvenile hurdle to complete a 1,962.5-1 four-timer for the Pipe stable. Geraghty rode the other winner, Stormez in the handicap chase over nearly three and a half miles, with McCoy again choosing wrongly on the fifth-placed favourite, Shooting Light.

Pipe horses now dominate the betting for the season's next major handicap, the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury in 13 days' time. Last season's attheraces Gold Cup winner Bounce Back is favourite in most lists, with Stormez and Cyfor Malta, who both incur penalties for their wins, jostling the likes of Hussard Collonges, Frenchman's Creek and Gunther McBride.

In the wet murk yesterday, the action on the far side of the course was virtually invisible to the faithful who made up a record crowd of 28,092 for the day, and the backdrop of Cleeve Hill completely so, as it stayed shrouded in the low cloud that grounded Pipe's helicopter. But whatever the weather it was business as usual for the most powerful stable in the land on the boss's first day back.

Mary Bromiley, the noted physiotherapist, is foremost among the rehabilitation squad at Pipe's Pond House yard, for humans and equines. The trainer had the plaster removed from his leg during the week and, until adrenalin began to take over, relied on a steel stick for balance. "I've got a plate fixing the joint and am still getting used to walking on it," he said. "I've been having loads of treatment, but when Mary came in to me yesterday I gave her a rollicking. She should have been out to see the horses first."