Saucats ends 24-race losing run with breakthrough Newton Abbot win

Saucats finally put the numbers to bed at Newton Abbot on Friday, 3 July 2026, landing the Sun Racing Free Tickets With Sun Club Novices' Handicap Hurdle by 3¾ lengths under Callum Pritchard. The Class 5 race over 2m2f110yds on good ground was worth £3,960.75 to the winner and sat inside the 2026 Sun Racing Summer Jumps Championship, the 84-fixture series that started at Worcester on 22 May and runs through to Newton Abbot on 18 September.

The breakthrough mattered because it was no ordinary first-time success. Saucats, a five-year-old French-bred gelding by Nirvana Du Berlais out of Taneshka, arrived with 24 starts and no win, yet carried an official mark of 79 and still had enough about him to make his 25th run the one that counted. He did it in a field of six, with Kittys Glance sent off 13/8 favourite and finishing second, and Hawa Jumeirah third. The winning time was 4m 23.46s.

The shape of the race told the story. Saucats raced prominently, was not fluent three out, then found another gear when the pressure came. He led once challenged and went clear inside the final 110 yards, which is the detail that matters more than the margin. This was not a horse stumbling into a soft verdict from the front; it was a run built on control, timing and a cleaner use of his stamina than he had shown before.

Joe Tickle said the yard had needed time to get to grips with Saucats and that he had been unlucky a couple of starts earlier after doing too much on the front end. Callum Pritchard added that the team had deliberately tried to settle him better after a previous run in which he had gone with the choke out and lacked fluency. That adjustment turned the difference between waste and efficiency: less early strain, more energy for the finish, and a horse who could be produced when it mattered.

Newton Abbot’s card had more live form in it too, with Gore Point landing his second win of the week and Arctic Voyage also scoring on the day. For Saucats, though, the question now is simpler than the drought that preceded this win: whether the calmer approach at this trip on summer ground gives Joe Tickle a workable mark, or whether this was the one run where everything finally lined up.