No festival mount for Spencer

Jamie Spencer does not expect to be riding in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper at the Cheltenham Festival on Wednesday.

Spencer, who shared last season’s Flat jockeys’ championship with Seb Sanders, is a keen jumping fan and famously rode Edward O’Grady’s Pizarro to a narrow victory over Rhinestone Cowboy in the 2002 renewal of the Bumper.

He told At The Races: “I’ve had a few offers but I think I’ll just go for a day out. There’s no point unless you are on one of the first couple in the betting really, and you are having to wait around until the last race of the day.”

Remembering that great battle with Rhinestone Cowboy, he added: “Pizarro was good, I’d ridden him in all his work that winter. He was a good, tough, honest horse, but he had a hard race and I think that left its mark on his career.

“I saw Norman (Williamson, rider of Rhinestone Cowboy) at the breeze-ups the other day – I should have reminded him about it!”