Hawick jockey Jason Hart chalks up fourth win in five days at Musselburgh
Hawick jockey Jason Hart racked up his 112th win of this flat season at Musselburgh Racecourse on Wednesday.
That first-placed finish, over a mile and a furlong, on 1-3 favourite Empirestateofmind was the Borderer’s 1,012th in Britain and the seven-year-old bay gelding’s eighth.
Hart, riding for John and Sean Quinn’s yard near Malton, finished two lengths clear of Connor Beasley on fellow North Yorkshire trainer Ed Bethell’s I Am Me to land a top prize of £6,750.
That was his fourth win in five days after others on Eye of Dubai for the Quinns and Mattice for East Yorkshire trainer Ian McInnes at Ripon in North Yorkshire on Saturday, both at 4-1 and over six furlongs, and on Legal Reform the day before at Merseyside’s Haydock Park for Michael Herrington’s Lincolnshire yard at 12-1 over almost seven furlongs, earning prize money of £25,770, £5,234 and £7,731 respectively.
The first of those three wins was Eye of Dubai’s second on the trot in the £50,000 Ripon Cathedral City of the Dales Handicap, though it was Patrick McDonald in the four-year-old bay gelding’s saddle 12 months ago.
“He doesn’t do a lot in front, so the more horses to aim at the better,” Hart told Sky Sports afterwards.
“We made a plan to go on the far side and he dug in there, which was good.”
Former Hawick trainer Iain Jardine, based at Carrutherstown in Dumfries and Galloway since 2015, was a winner at the double at the East Lothian track with Parisiac at 20-1 and Elemental Eye at 3-1, both ridden by Andrew Mullen.
The former, a six-year-old bay gelding, won over five furlongs, earning £5,234, and the latter, a four-year-old bay gelding, over a mile and six furlongs, for a prize of £4,187.
Second and fourth places in the latter race went to Hawick jockeys Greg Fairley and Rhys Elliott, riding Falaise Blanc for Selkirk trainer Katie Scott and Star of Markinch for Camptown’s Gary Rutherford respectively.
Hart also took a third place at Musselburgh, on Soul Seeker for North Yorkshire’s Philip Kirkby, with victory in that five-furlong race going to Ski Angel, ridden by Andrew Breslin for Mike Smith’s East Ayrshire stables.