An interesting detail about Anglers Crag is that he has never not been owned by his breeder Derrick Mossop, even when starting out in Irish points in the care of Terence O’Brien.
Stints with David Pipe and Brian Ellison followed that with O’Brien, and in each of those three tenures his form had dipped from its peak with the respective trainer by the time he’d left them, markedly so in the case of the two English trainers.
It reads to me as if Mr Mossop knows his horse sours if left in the one place for too long, and it’s notable that he lasted no more and no less than two seasons with every one of those three previous operations. To what extent the switching round of tactics that Joe refers to in the second half of the gelding’s Ellison career was Mossop’s decision is, I suspect, something known only to connections, but it did nothing to delay the inevitable decline in his fortunes for that handler.
Things have got very good again very quickly for Anglers Crag, but a rise to a new career-high mark at 11 years of age likely awaits, and it’ll be some feat if Nicky Richards can keep him competitive off it for the remainder of the presumed two seasons he’ll get with him.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.