Big rewards for front-runner Little Josh

A JOCKEY named Sam was widely predicted to steal the headlines in the Paddy Power Gold Cup but it was Twiston-Davies, rather than Waley-Cohen, who stepped up to the mark.

Amateur Sam Waley-Cohen was sent off the 2-1 favourite aboard his father's Long Run in the first major handicap chase of the season and the pair managed to claim third place, but they were given a Cheltenham masterclass by 18-year-old Sam Twiston-Davies and the gallant front-runner Little Josh.

The teenager set off at a hectic pace aboard a gelding who dead-heated at Carlisle a fortnight ago, attacking every fence and establishing a lead of at least ten lengths for much of the way while his trainer-father Nigel chewed his fingernails in the stands.

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Little Josh (20-1) winged around the home bend and his stride only began to shorten after the last fence.

But as runner-up Dancing Tornado scented blood, passing Long Run on the charge to the line, he was separated from the winner by two and three-quarter lengths.

Nigel Twiston-Davies keeps the memory of his son's Foxhunter triumph on Baby Run on a par with clinching the Gold Cup through Imperial Commander (also the 2008 Paddy Power winner) on the same afternoon this March, and this was another moment of what will surely be many for the family scrapbook. "Didn't he do well?" remarked Twiston-Davies snr. "He rode into every fence as if it was the last, but he gave him a breather on the back straight before he kicked on again. I kept thinking, 'Will he last?, will he last?', but the boy knows better than I do."