An ex-pat Australian, resident in England since 1978, trained the upset winner of the York stamina feature, the totesport Ebor (Heritage Handicap) over approx 2700m, on Wednesday.
Jane Chapple-Hyam, 39, a daughter of Melbourne’s Susan Peacock and Andrew Peacock, went to England when her mother was married to Robert Sangster. She met trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam when he trained at the Sangter’s Manton property and they were married for 16 years.
Now training at Newmarket with a small team of 10 Chapple-Hyam had hoped that Mudawin would be good enough to return to her Melbourne to run in the Melbourne Cup, but he had trained on well enough to make an entry.
However, on Wednesday the five-year-old by Intikhab stunning the market to be the longest-priced winner to win the Ebor in 163 years at 100-1.
Elusive Dream set a strong pace on the good to soft ground with Mudawin settling at the rear under jockey John Egan. In the run up the straight Egan started from near last and went down the middle of the track slowly picking up the leaders.
At the 200m Mudawin was fifth, and right on the line he claimed the lead.
The Paul Makin, Gerard Peterson and Owen Glenn owned, Luca Cumani trained, four-year-old Sadler’s Wells entire Glistening, under Jamie Spencer, was second by a head after looking the winner until Mudawin arrived on the line.
Young Mick (Kings Theatre) just missed making it three wins in succession when third, the margin a short head and Geordieland (FR) (Johann Quatz) was fourth, the margin 1 3/4L.
The latter three are all possible Melbourne Cup candidates.
Egan was banned for four days after the vet reported that Mudawin was marked by the jockey’s whip. Chapple-Hyam was fined £275 for not instructing Egan that the horse was easily marked.
“We decided to sit out the back and hope that we could run for a place but he just thrived on the ground,” said Chapple-Hyam reports The Racing Post.
“I was a bit concerned about the ground yesterday and I was lucky it didn’t rain, he wouldn’t want it too soft. But we have always thought a lot of this horse and I thought he was a crazy price.”
Chapple-Hyam, former wife of Peter, admitted her first year as a trainer has not been easy but said: “You have to get the winners on the board for people to come to you, you have to prove yourself - so hopefully this will help a little bit with the sales coming up.
“I wanted Mudawin in the Melbourne Cup but lately his form hasn't been good enough to enter but he has just come along in the last fortnight.”
Mudawin, out of the Persian Heights mare Fida, was racing for the 14th time and it was his fifth win for owners Franconson Partners.