Little Tiger impresses on Tuesday card at Brighton Racecourse

The four-year-old and in-form jockey Edward Greatrex roared home by an ever-increasing seven-and-a-half lengths from Dotties Star, with favourite and regular visitor Fighting Poet unable to extend his winning course sequence.

Successful trainer (and “one man band” for the day) William Stone also “led up” the runaway winner, and he was all smiles as he declared: “That was brilliant. Tiger is owned and was bred by my partner Doctor Caroline Scott.

“Brighton has been a lucky track for us. We had seven winners here one season a few years back, and this is only our second Brighton runner this year.”

George Baker, who is busy preparing to move his Chiddingfold string to the recently-renovated 70-box Downs House yard in the New Year, was another “happy chappie” as he watched Marsh Benham and jockey Jack Mitchell march home well clear of Tony Carroll’s Poetic Force in the mile handicap.

But Carroll’s exasperating sequence of seconds and other near-misses, stretching back five weeks, is finally over! Yesterday’s headline horse Kondratiev Wave ensured that flat race winner number 82 of 2024 was clinched convincingly in the concluding event on the card, causing both great relief and huge smiles for the trainer and his apprentice rider Jack Doughty.

Willie Carson’s grandson William has a long way to go to emulate his famous near-namesake, but if the horse is good enough, so is William, and he took Michael Madgwick’s Fullforward home by a “nose from a rose” in the mile-and-a-half handicap at 3.40, denying Cloudy Rose by the absolute minimum margin.

Sir Mark Prescott’s rising apprentice star Fred Daly waltzed home by eight lengths on Marching Mac in the opening event restricted to claiming jockeys, and Brighton’s new pin-up rider Joe Leavy narrowed the gap to three on Majestic Heights (38-35) as he and current leader Sean Dylan Bowen fight it out for the 2024 junior jockeys’ championship.