TRADITION has it that anyone who wins the same prize three times gets to keep it, so the World may soon belong to Inglis Drever.
The Graham Wylie-owned gelding is aiming for a place in the record books at Cheltenham today when he bids to become the first horse to wear the Festival's staying crown three times.
Winner in 2005 and again last year, Inglis Drever may already hav
e achieved the unique feat had injury not kept him out of the race in 2006, but if the bookies have got it right, nothing stands in the way of his date with destiny this time.
Inglis Drever was the third horse bought by Borders-born Wylie and like many of the others who wear the increasingly familiar black and beige colours of he and his wife Andrea, he wasn't cheap.
The then four-year-old had already shown winning form on the flat for former owner Piers Pottinger and trainer Sir Mark Prescott when Wylie paid 110,000 guineas for him.
No Refuge, another Festival winner for the Wylies, was also bought out of Prescott's yard and others have been purchased from the same source for big prices prompting Prescott to say: "When I was young man, I used to wake up in the morning and the first thing I thought about was sex. Now I wake up and hope that nice Mr Wylie is still in the best of health."
"Drever's ready to go," said Wylie. "He owes us nothing, and if he does the business today, great, if he doesn't, he's already won it twice."
Wylie's ownership of Inglis Drever is far from the only Scottish connection the horse has as he's named in honour of the late John Inglis Dreever Pottinger, one of the nation's most distinguished heraldic artists and portrait painters who died in 1986.
He was also a resident of Edinburgh's New Town and the uncle of the gelding's original owner.
"I always swore that if I got a horse good enough I would name it after him," said Pottinger, who claims that, in the early days, only Scottish commentators could pronounce 'ingalls dreever' properly.
With all the practice they've had calling him home since, however, even the Sassenachs are word perfect now.
There has been speculation this will be Inglis Drever's final appearance before retirement, but that is not definite.
Further success at Prestbury Park this afternoon for a horse his trainer Howard Johnson calls a "Boeing 747" will take his earnings over jumps alone to over £750,000. Wonder if Wylie wakes up in the morning and thinks, "I hope that nice Sir Mark Prescott is still in the best of health."
The full article contains 456 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
