Olive and Georgie Nicholls team up for Ascot triumph

Young rider Olive Nicholls kept it in the family with a first Ascot victory as Thank You Ma’am came out on top in the Thames Materials Novices’ Handicap Hurdle.

Riding for her mother Georgie against a field which included a rival trained by her father Paul, Nicholls took up a prominent position on the chestnut as he looked to break his duck after finishing second on six occasions.

The duo made all of the running, settling into a lovely rhythm with a neat round of jumping to take the final bend in the lead.

No one could land a blow on the run to the line, and it was the 11-4 favourite who strode to a seven-and-a-half-length success to give the mother and daughter partnership even more reason to celebrate this Christmas.

The trainer said: “This horse has been second six times, he so deserves to get his head in front and he’s got quite a lot of himself in front today!

“I’m really, really chuffed. He will jump fences but I said I wasn’t going to give up until he won a hurdle race because I was nearly becoming the worst trainer on the planet if I couldn’t win one with him – but we got there in the end.

“It’s lucky Olive doesn’t have an earpiece because at first I thought she was going too slow, then I thought she was going too quick. When she jumped the last, I thought ‘oh no, she definitely got it right’.

“It’s really special working together. We get on like a house on fire, she works unbelievably hard and I just wish I had 10 children so I could sit and watch them work away!

“She so deserves this, I just want another one now!”

Gary and Josh Moore’s Kotmask then prevailed in the Howden Handicap Chase, justifying favouritism at 13-8 under Caoilin Quinn.

The six-year-old had run well twice at the track already this term without winning, but bettered those efforts to score by a length and three quarters, despite a slow jump at the last.

“There was no real stride coming (at the last) and I didn’t know what was behind me, but I thought I had the race won,” said Quinn.

“I thought I’d let him go in and pop and luckily he’s very good when he does that, he got safely to the other side of it, so fair play to him.

“He can go on any ground, he’s one of these horses everyone wants to have.

“He could probably go up in trip on better ground and on soft ground he could go down in trip. He’s a real fun horse to have.”