Burke stars as leading Jockeys’ Cup challengers stall 

Harry Cobden, Sam Twiston-Davies and Nico De Boinville all had quiet days as Jonathan Burke starred on Imperial Cup day at Sandown. 

Burke showed the beauty of the competition as he picked up 20 points in the quest to be the inaugural David Power Jockeys’ Cup winner despite not winning a race, thanks to a fourth-placed finish on Tintintin and runner-up efforts on Dream Shadow and Java Point later in the card.

Cobden drew a blank, De Boinville’s sole scoring ride was a fourth on Excello, while Twiston-Davies managed one place better on Easy Love in the mares’ bumper.

The feature race – the Betfair Imperial Cup – went to the Sean Bowen-ridden Go Dante, who was winning the race for the second year in a row, with Kielan Woods, Freddie Gingell and Burke picking up the minor honours. 

Bowen landed 14 points on the day, while Gingell is embroiled in the race to be leading conditional jockey, and is now 14 points behind leader Dylan Johnston, with Caoilin Quinn just two points ahead of Gingell. 

Other beneficents on Saturday included regular columnist Gavin Sheehan who grabbed 14 points thanks mainly to 33/1 chance Laurens Bay landing the EBF Final, while current Jockeys’ Cup leader Harry Skelton picked up 10 points with the well-backed Hoe Joly Smoke landing the staying chase on the Esher card. 

Hereford’s sole ITV race went the way of Jack Tudor who had an armchair ride on 22-length winner Western General.