Cheltenham Festival 2016: Sandy Thomson on preparing Seeyouatmidnight for the RSA Chase

The Independent caught up with the former rugby talent

Seeyouatmidnight at Cheltenham at the start of 2016 (GETTY IMAGES)

Isn’t it strange, how things sometimes turn out? It would be wrong to say that Sandy Thomson, the son of a hugely successful racehorse permit-holder, was oblivious to the wild goings-on at the 1986 Cheltenham Festival as Dawn Run, roared to the rafters, fought her way to a hats-in-the-air, lumps-in-the-throat, historic completion of the Champion Hurdle-Gold Cup double.

He says now that he definitely would have watched the whole wonderful occasion on television and so will have heard Peter O’Sullevan’s celebrated commentary – “and the mare’s beginning to get up” – and watched Jonjo O’Neill’s still often replayed red-jerseyed salute, punching the air amid the mob of well-wishers on his return to the chaos of the winners’ circle.

But then, in a previous life, Thomson was a rugby talent, a free-scoring winger for Kelso, and on his own Cloud Nine, just days after helping Scotland B upset the odds with a 12-10 victory over the French at the Stade Armand-Chouffet, Villefranche. Memories of his own achievements from that time are precious and vivid, too.

The strange bit is that, exactly 30 years on, Thomson now finds himself focused fully on Cheltenham as he prepares Seeyouatmidnight for tomorrow’s RSA Chase and that two of his most dangerous opponents are Jonjo O’Neill, now training, of course, and saddling the much-fancied More Of That, and Willie Mullins – the son of Dawn Run’s handler, Paddy Mullins – double-handed with Roi Des Francs and Shaneshill.

Seeyouatmidnight, or “Midnight” as he is known to all at Lambden Farm, a 500-acre spread in the Berwickshire countryside, has much resting on his powerful shoulders; flying the flag at this year’s Festival not just for Scotland, but the standard-bearer for the whole of the north of Britain.

“Definitely the whole of the north,” Thomson confirms. “The support we have been getting from all over the circuit has been fantastic.”

Seeyouatmidnight is a modern-day rarity: a horse not trained in Ireland or the south of England running at the premier jumps fixture with a genuine chance of winning. An underdog, not in terms of ability, but certainly thoroughly outnumbered.

While 1986 marked the beginning of a golden age for Scottish rugby, Dawn Run’s victory also signalled the beginning of the end of north-country dominance at the Cheltenham Festival.

Back then it was northern trainers, sending top-notch hurdlers and chasers down the M5 by the lorry-load each March, who ruled the roost at Prestbury Park – Peter Easterby, Michael Dickinson, Jimmy FitzGerald and Arthur Stephenson won the Gold Cup at least once apiece between 1979 and 1987 – before the money ran south and the winners dried up.

These days you could count the number of northern runners at the Festival, let alone winners, on your fingers. Nothing to do with a dearth of good trainers. Just a dearth of good horses.

Seeyouatmidnight is a welcome throwback to those classy northern staying chasers of yesteryear. Tough. Unflashy. The type who might well follow in their footsteps and win a Gold Cup next year, but who in the meantime looks tailor-made for the always gruelling RSA Chase.

Scotland has endured its wettest winter since 1910, but Lambden Farm has escaped the worst of the weather and Thomson has been happy with preparations.

“We haven’t been affected much at all,” he said. “And, thankfully, we got that last run into him at Newcastle [two weeks ago], which is what he needed. He wasn’t spectacular, but that’s the way he is. He got the job done.”

The quality of Seeyouatmidnight’s form was already there for all to see at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day when he beat the highly rated Blaklion, but somewhat inevitably punters have been seduced instead by the Irish raider No More Heroes, owned by the powerful Gigginstown House Stud, trained by Gordon Elliott and hyped up by some as the next Arkle.

Thomson has gone through the form of both with a fine toothcomb and is not at all fazed. “Don’t get me wrong, we are up against some very good horses,” Thomson happily concedes. “But we finished seventh in the World Hurdle last year with a rushed preparation and his chase form this season stacks up well.

“And my rugby-playing days taught me to always respect my opponents for who they were, but never too much, otherwise they trampled all over you. One of my boyhood heroes was Andy Irvine, but I ended up playing against him a lot, when he was still playing for Scotland, and I couldn’t pay him too much respect then. I just had to get stuck in.”

Having had to deal with firecrackers and live cockerels in France, another Scotland B match against the mighty All Blacks at Galashiels (they lost) and a fiercely contested 1984 Scottish title race for Kelso (they won, his career highlight), the laid-back Thomson won’t be breaking into a cold sweat at the prospect of an Irish onslaught this Wednesday.

Most importantly, he has every faith in his horse. “Midnight is one of those horses who isn’t flashy, but whose jumping will hold him in good stead. He has a high cruising speed and, though he won’t quicken, it will take a good horse to go by him.

“People think he needs soft ground, but that’s because most of his form has been on soft. But the ground was quick in the World Hurdle and he actually holds a track record at Musselburgh, one of the fastest tracks in Britain. He has a very good action, not the action of a soft-ground horse.”

Whatever his credentials and the logic of the form book, the fact remains that when Cheltenham comes around it’s not the Scottish everyone turns to for a flutter, it’s the Irish. It’s probably fair to say that if he and No More Heroes swapped yards and colours, their odds would be switched, too; Seeyouatmidnight, on offer at around 12-1, would instead be pressing More Of That for favouritism.

Punters must draw their own conclusions about where the value lies, but it should be stressed that Thomson, though he has held a full licence for just four years, is hardly a greenhorn stepping out of his league.

Rather, the 54-year-old, a point-to-point rider in his youth, has horses in his blood (“they’ve always been around the place”), the third generation of a family not just used to farming races each side of the Scottish border, but never afraid of shooting for the stars whenever they had the right one for the job.

Border Rag, trained by Sandy’s father, David, was favourite to win what is now the Neptune Novices’ Hurdle in 1973, only to have the misfortune to run into Cheltenham legend Willie Wumpkins, as he gained his first of four Festival triumphs.

And grandfather Moffat Thomson’s MacMoffat finished runner-up to Workman in the 1939 Grand National – in front of an estimated crowd of 260,000 – and then again to Bogskar the following year after a gallant attempt to make all the running.

That’s three big near misses; now the rugby prospect-turned-racehorse trainer aims finally to cross the line with Seeyouatmidnight. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again.” It could be a Thomson family motto. A bit corny maybe, but apt.