UK Horse Racing Tips

Caroline Bailey has, justifiably, garnered a reputation as one of the leading horsewomen in Britain. She is, in fact, the daughter of the late Dick Saunders, who rode Grittar to win the Grand National, as a 48-year-old amateur, in 1982. Indeed, during her own riding career, she had the distinction of becoming the first female jockey to ride a winner at Cheltenham, aboard Ptarmigan who, like Grittar, was bred, owned and trained by the late Frank Gilman in Morcott, Rutland.

Caroline Bailey first took out a full, professional training licence in 2006, but by that stage of her career, had already sent out over 450 point-to-point winners from her yard at Holdenby Farm Lodge in rural Northamptonshire. Her most memorable victory came courtesy of the seven-year-old Castle Mane, who recorded an impressive, 13-length win in the Christie’s Foxhunter Chase Challenge Cup at the Cheltenham Festival in 1999. In fact, she later admitted, ‘At Cheltenham, I’d never been so excited in my life, particularly as we’d had him from the beginning.’ Two years later, in 2001, Bailey saddled the first two home, Gunner Welburn and Secret Bay, in the Martell Fox Hunters’ Chase, over the Grand National fences, at Aintree. Other notable horses to pass through her hands include the profilic Teaplanter, who only cost £1,000 as a yearling, but won 27 races, including three point-to-points, and amassed nearly £54,000 in total prize money.

Since joining the professsional training ranks, Bailey has found high-profile winners harder to come by. However, in February, 2019, she did saddle Crosspark to win the Vertem Eider Handicap Chase at Newcastle; the £50,048 first prize money made a significant contribution towards what is, so far, her best seasonal total, of £227,615, in 2018/19.

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