Antonio Bishop on board Portfolio Company has snatched his first clean Gold Cup win by crossing the line ahead of Cash Equity and the rest of the pack.
Bishop started to make his move at the half and then when they went into the quarter Portfolio Company made for the inside and it was a ding dong battle with Cash Equity down to the wire.
Making a dream come true today, he said, “It was always my dream to ride a horse that my bosses brought in and I got my chance and I came through with it.”
He won in a time of 1:49 and three-fifths.
Bishop rides for Springhead Farms. The horse is owned by Gay Smith and trained in America by Chad Brown, but locally by stable trainer Edward Walcott Jr. Today’s win at the 41st Sandy Lane Gold Cup gave Smith and Springhead Farms their fourth Gold Cup win.
I went into the race with a lot of confidence
Asked how he was able to do the deed against the early leader Spy Novel, and the favourite Jack the Nipper, Bishop said he did his homework.
He told the media:
“I went into the race with a lot of confidence. The only other horse that I had as a factor was my stablemate [Jack the Nipper], but after doing my homework, if it came down to a fight I would have been better off than him so I don’t think I had any worries.”
Sitting atop “a fighter”, Bishop said that he was not even concerned coming up alongside a former Gold Cup winning jockey in the likes of Rasheed Hughes on Cash Equity as they tried to close. He said that he already knew as he galloped to the finish for the win, “Even if he join me, he still has to fight to pass me, so I was okay.”
This is Bishop’s second Gold Cup win, but in 2011 he won due to a DQ.
