When Bradsell fractured a fetlock six months ago while Archie Watson was preparing him for Dubai’s spring carnival, the trainer feared his racing career was over. “I thought we’d be saving him for a stallion job next year,” Watson said here on Friday. “If you’d told me then that we’d be winning a Nunthorpe, I’d have said that the chance was about 0.5%.”
Watson’s pessimism was misplaced. Bradsell may well be a stallion this time next year, but if or when he retires to stud, he will do so with a convincing success in the Nunthorpe Stakes on his record, after a 57-second dash down the straight five furlongs here that unfolded almost exactly as Hollie Doyle, his jockey, had hoped and expected.
