Bryony Frost: Why victory at Wincanton could be her breakthrough moment

Bryony Frost is set to ride former Greatwood Hurdle winner Old Guard at Cheltenham on Sunday

For all sportspeople who make it to the top, there's always that breakthrough moment.

Wayne Rooney's 'wonder goal' for Everton against Arsenal. Teenage amateur Justin Rose finishing equal fourth at the 1998 Open. Roger Federer's Wimbledon defeat of defending champion Pete Sampras, also as a teenager.

In horse racing, future champion Richard Dunwoody never looked back after riding four winners as an amateur one March afternoon in 1984 at Hereford, Frankie Dettori seemed to come of age with his first Royal Ascot victory in 1990, and - more recently - rising star Oisin Murphy signalled his imminent appearance in the big time with four successes on Ayr Gold Cup day in 2013.

All sports are littered with bright young things who have 'made the breakthrough' but then not gone on, but Bryony Frost's victory on Present Man in Wincanton's prestigious Badger Ales Trophy felt, to me, significant.

'A day I won't forget'

Leading most of the way, the 22-year-old and her willing partner narrowly saw off the challenge of the hugely experienced Leighton Aspell and his mount in a breathless finish; it was the fledgling jockey's biggest win since turning professional.

Now Frost - again riding for trainer Paul Nicholls, her boss - is set to get the chance to shine on jump racing's biggest stage when partnering Old Guard in Cheltenham's Greatwood Handicap Hurdle.

"Wincanton was brilliant, definitely a day I won't forget," she said.

"He [Present Man] just jumped for fun - I've never got on a horse quite like him to operate over a fence.

"Leighton Aspell was chasing us all the way - he's not somebody you really want on your outside like that - and the horse dug deep."

Born and bred into a family of horsemen and women in the rural idyll of Dartmoor, Devon, Frost is daughter of Grand National winning-jockey Jimmy, and sister of professional jockey Hadden.

With a pedigree like that, she was always likely to go into the 'family business' and admits, to use an old cliche, to riding practically before she was walking.

"We had a couple of donkeys that did fairground rides down at Paignton," she said. "Mine was Nosey.

"If I got off him, I wasn't allowed back on, so I thought where I go, he goes, and we'd go into gran's kitchen to see her.

"I was hunting with the Dartmoor [Hunt] at four, and showjumping with Mum and Dad; the pony racing was a brilliant start and then [point-to-] pointing, and you get to a crossroads and you have to turn left or right.

"I chose to go professional, and at the minute we're stepping in the right direction."

She first came to prominence as an amateur rider with Cheltenham Festival success, again for Nicholls, on Pacha Du Polder - Victoria Pendleton's mount the previous year - in the 2017 Foxhunter Chase.

The switch to the paid ranks soon followed.

At Nicholls' base she is competing for opportunities with some of jumping's outstanding young talent - led by stable number one Sam Twiston-Davies - but the 10-time champion trainer's support is key.

No other female professional jump-jockey in Britain has been part of such a powerful string, leading to inevitable talk about the prospect of pushing back the gender barriers.

Frost's father Jimmy, winner of the 1989 Grand National on Little Polveir, hung up his boots in July 2002

'Girl power? I'm just little old me from Devon'

While Hayley Turner and Josephine Gordon have hit the heights on the flat, apart from Gee Armytage (who rode a Cheltenham Festival double in 1987), grade-one race winner Lizzie Kelly and Lucy Alexander (the champion conditional in 2013), women have not made quite the same impact in National Hunt racing.

But Frost, for whom the word 'bubbly' could easily have been invented, does not see herself as a pioneer.

"I get quite a few come up to me going 'girl power'," she said. "I laugh it off. I don't really see myself as anything.

"I'm just thinking, 'I'm little old me from Devon that's just popped up from somewhere', but if we can help the girls some way or other break the mould as it were, that would be a good start."

Nicholls says he has been impressed with Frost's work ethic as well as her riding skills, saying she was as keen to get back to muck out as celebrate after Present Man's victory.

As well as with Old Guard, trainer and jockey team up with Black Corton - on whom Frost is unbeaten, winning four races from four starts since July - at Cheltenham's November Meeting.

Of Old Guard, partly owned by TV presenter Jeremy Kyle and looking to repeat his 2015 win in the Greatwood Hurdle, Nicholls said: "He gets a real racing weight, and that sort of weight, with Bryony's five-pound [inexperience] allowance, gives him a bit of a chance.

"He had a little breathing operation in the summer, and won well at Kempton in October, so we're looking forward to it."

Old Guard helping the new guard to march on? Neat.

You can listen to coverage of Cheltenham's November Meeting on BBC Radio 5 live from 17-19 November