ROA Owner of the Day - Olly Harris - Porticello

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 We are proud sponsors of the Cheltenham Festival Leading Owner Award as well as the daily ROA Owner of the Day award, both of which will be championing Owners’ successes and their contributions to the sport.

 Today’s (Friday 18 March) ROA Owner of the Day is Olly Harris from Leatherhead. He owns Porticello, who contests the JCB Triumph Hurdle (1.30pm), the opening race on Cheltenham Gold Cup day.

 There were no British-trained horses at all in the first Festival contest on Thursday, the Turners Novices’ Chase, but despite the presence of Vauban, Pied Piper and Fil Dor in Friday’s opening race, a few owners and trainers are stepping up to the plate.

 To say the Triumph Hurdle of two years ago could have been a luckier race for Gary and Jamie Moore is an understatement, with the jockey extremely unfortunate to be unseated at the last when ten lengths clear and favourite backers about to cheer them home.

 The duo are back for more here with Olly’s Porticello, who will be joined in the Grade 1 line-up by stablemate Teddy Blue, the mount of Jamie’s brother Josh.

 Porticello looks set to go off the shortest-priced of the British challengers, having proved a shrewd private purchase by Olly and his trainer after winning at Auteuil for David Cottin last April.

 The son of Sholokhov has won three of his four starts, including the Grade 1 Finale Juvenile Hurdle at Chepstow, and was a close second to fellow Triumph challenger Knight Salute at Doncaster on the other occasion.

 Due to Covid-19 restrictions, his owner was unable to be at Chepstow for his top-flight success over Christmas, though was elated all the same, but there’s nothing like being there and, like all owners, Olly is hopeful we have seen the worst of the pandemic and its effects on everyday life and sport. 

 Olly, speaking from Cheltenham on Thursday lunchtime, where he has been enjoying the racing all week, says: “Porticello has been doing really well and to be doing what he’s doing at his age is phenomenal, as he is more of a long-term staying chaser prospect.

 “To win first time out at Auteuil, when he was so big and weak, was incredible, and all he’s done all season is improve, as he fills out and grows, and Gary has done a great job with him.

 “With the watering and the rain, I think he’s got a massive chance. The Mullins and Elliott horses [Vauban, and Pied Piper and Fil Dor] have got a bit more tactical flat speed, and realistically our horse’s future does lie over further - two miles will be a bit sharp for him - but it’s a stiff track and soft ground, and he’s not slow. If they go a right good clip, which they normally do in that race, I think he will be bang there.

 “He’s my first runner at the Festival, we’ll be at the track nice and early and go and see him, and hopefully he runs a big race.”

 Olly has had 13 individual horses run in Britain in his yellow and dark blue silks this season, while he had seven run on the Flat in 2021. Funding his racing passion is his job as a fund manager, as the owner of a private equity firm.

 He has been an owner for six years, and an ROA member for three, and with business having gone well he has been able to enhance his hobby by improving the quality of horse he has had.

 “I’ve got three trainers, Joseph Parr does all my Flat horses, and then there’s Neil Muholland and Gary over jumps, and the horses are all Tote-sponsored,” he says.

 “Tomorrow will be Porticello’s last run of the season - we’d never run him on good ground - but In The Air, who won at Newbury, might go to Aintree. 

 “I’ve also got a couple more French horses I purchased who haven’t been out yet. One of them, Iskar D’Airy, is running at Kempton on Saturday, but I’m happy to give my horses plenty of time and be patient.”

The collection of four-year-olds gathering at Cheltenham on Friday for the Triumph will mainly have their best days ahead of them. Porticello is certainly one such, but a second Grade 1 win as a juvenile hurdler before he is put away to fill his frame would be celebrated like there is no tomorrow. And what a result that would be for an owner with his first Festival runner.