‘We’ve spent more on champagne’

WITH amateurs allowed back for the past fortnight, having spent most of the winter not allowed to ride because they did not constitute “elite” sportsmen, the Rose Paterson Randox Foxhunters’ Chase was always going to be the highlight of the season for the unpaid ranks.

The race, which gave a lot of young thrusters their first taste of the National fences, did not disappoint. I remember my first ride round Aintree, on a horse called Rocamist, behind Eliogarty in 1986 like it was yesterday.

But James King – who had only spoken to Cheshire trainer Joe