News Mostly Cloudy has a bright outlook

Mostly Cloudy has a bright outlook

weatherbys

by Graham Dench

Every young trainer needs a flagship horse to put them on the map, and Gemma Tutty has wasted no time in finding hers.

Mostly Cloudy has won five straight handicaps for the former jockey in her first season with a licence, and while it takes a leap of faith to see him troubling three-time former winner Stradivarius in Friday’s £250,000 Weatherbys Hamilton Lonsdale Cup he has earned his place and has little to lose.
 
Tutty, who rode 73 winners before taking over training from her mother Karen at the family’s North Yorkshire base, saddled her first runner only in April but she has already enjoyed 12 wins. The lion’s share of them come from Mostly Cloudy, who was bought out of Andrew Balding’s stable for 23,000 guineas at last October’s Horses In Training Sale after one run and has already attracted major offers from abroad.
 
Mostly Cloudy’s first win came off a mark of just 60 at Redcar, but he was raised to 93 after completing his fifth win on the bounce off 86 in the historic Brown Jack Handicap at Ascot last month and he has since been put up another 2lb after the soundly-beaten Ascot second Single went one better at Newmarket last week.
 
Tutty is making the most of it all, knowing that there is every likelihood Mostly Cloudy will be sold, and she can’t wait for Friday.
 
She said: “We always had a long-term plan that if he won the Brown Jack he’d go for the Lonsdale, and win it he did. He’s obviously on a huge upward curve and he’s taking his racing really well. Coming into Ascot he was bouncing at home, and this week he’s even fresher. He bucked me off on Tuesday!
 
“It’s a huge ask and nobody’s under any illusions, but there’s nothing to lose as he’s going to the sales anyway at the end of the month and so his handicap mark isn't really a concern for us. If he’s last he’s last, but so long as he isn’t tailed off I don’t think he’ll embarrass himself.
 
“We just want to see him put up a good performance, and perhaps even another improved performance, as he does seem to be getting better with every run.”
 
She added: “The first round of entries was a long time ago and it’s just been amazing watching him tick each box along the way until finally we’ve got here. Not only did he win at Ascot but he won by four lengths.
 
“I could never have imagined that beforehand, particularly after Doncaster the time before, where he looked beat with half a furlong to go and gave me a fright. With hindsight though, that showed he can battle, and he’s going to have to on Friday.
 
“York is one of our local tracks and I said at the start of the year that I’d love to have a winner there, as I never rode one. Realistically it’s not going to happen on Friday, but I’ve done Ascot now, so I already feel like I’ve excelled myself!” 
 
Tutty would love to train Mostly Cloudy again next year, and it’s not out of the question. If not, she hopes that the owners, who race as SD Velo, will reinvest. She has kept a share in the colt herself too which gives her a say in decisions and some compensation for his departure, assuming he fetches big money.
 
She said: “We’ve had offers already, mainly from Australia, and very fair offers too. The last one certainly took a bit of thinking about, but a few of the owners wanted him to take his chance at York, and so did I.
 
“When that sort of money is on the table you can’t afford to keep these horses, unless you are very rich. That’s racing though, and I haven’t been dreaming of a four-year-old career. If he’s sold I’ll just have to move on to the next one, but he’d have to make the right money and we’ve given him an entry in the Irish Cesarewitch, which has a pot of 600,000 euros this year.”
 
Mostly Cloudy will be an outsider on Friday in a field headed by Stradivarius, for whom retirement no longer seems so imminent after owner Bjorn Nielsen said at the weekend that racing on into 2023 is “a possibility, as long as he shows he wants to do it.”
 
Summer placings behind Kyprios in the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, where he was unlucky in running again, and in the Goodwood Cup, where he was beaten only a neck, make Stradivarius very much the one to beat on a track at which he has yet to be beaten in six starts, with wins here in 2018, 2019 and 2021, and in the Yorkshire Cup in 2018, 2019 and 2022.
 
A declared field of eight also includes the Goodwood Cup third Trueshan, who is the highest rated stayer in training following his win under a welter burden in the Northumberland Plate. However, Alan King will not run him unless the rain forecast for Thursday night arrives in significant quantity.