Martinborough horsewoman Anne Stephen was quick to deflect the praise when congratulated for winning the Speed Horse of the Year title at the Horse of the Year Show which finished in Hastings over the weekend. Instead Stephen praised the skills of her horse Constantine with the eight-year-old producing an outstanding effortin an event raced entirely against the clock with every rail down seeing four time points imposed. Constantine had a remarkable 5secs to spare from his nearest rival when the points were tallied up and Stephen was "over the moon" with his application. "He listened to everything I said and jumped beautifully, he never looked like putting a foot wrong," Stephen said. "He loved the nature of the course, the big sweeping turns played right into our hands." As the winner of the national seven-year-old title last season, Stephen had expected Constantine to perform well at Hastings but she was also aware that in a speed event anything can happen, and so she was not making any predictions. "You have to go so hard for something like 70secs that risks have to be taken, you can't afford to take the foot off the pedal," she said. Stephen recalled purchasing Constantine from Levin as a five-year-old after he had been too slow on the flat to make it as a racehorse. "We did the deal by phone, it was a matter for us of buying the horse and trying him out and if he didn't come up the way we wanted we would move him on again," she said. "But it didn't take long for him to show some real ability as a jumper, and he's still young enough to get even better." For Stephen winning the Speed of the Year title was nothing new as she rode Dealer to success in the same event in 2004.
