Owner David Armstrong's racing column: Mabs Cross being beaten on the line still haunts me

​Let’s roll back the clock to an August day at York eight years ago.

There’s always going to be plenty of surprises in a race that lasts under 60 seconds but to lose the Nunthorpe Stakes dash in such a brutal fashion haunts me to this day.

And I don’t think I will ever get over it.

With our wonderful mare Mabs Cross pulling away to fight it out with Alpha Delphini in the final two furlongs they flashed across the line together.

It seemed impossible to split them, and with TV commentators claiming that Mabs Cross ‘had definitely not lost the race’ it looked like we had claimed the famous Group One sprint on the Knavesmire.

But the final surprise came nearly quarter of an hour later when the judge somehow managed to separate the two horses and call Alpha Delphini the winner by a nose.

Looking at the photograph, as I have done hundreds of times since, it seemed impossible that Mabs Cross had not won.

Alpha Delphini’s jockey Graham Lee, who rode Ginger McCain’s Amberleigh House to Grand National glory and the trainer Bryan Smart, both said afterwards that they would have been happy with a dead-heat.

I’m a good loser but if you are not a good loser in racing then you need to get out.

You will have more bad days than good but to have Mabs Cross called a winner by so many and then have the decision reversed was cruel.

In the days that followed I had calls, messages and letters from people countrywide also convinced that Mabs Cross had won the Nunthorpe.

I would never take anything away from the winning horse, trainer and connections, but for me the result should have been called a dead heat.

I always had tremendous faith in Mabs Cross – and she showed her class a few weeks later, claiming the Prix de l’Abbeye at Paris Longchamp.

There’s a fascinating back story to that too.

Six years earlier our 2012 July Cup winner Mayson had landed second place in the race on Arc Day.

I can see Paul Hanagan now, weaving his way through the 19-strong field on Mayson – only to be pipped on the line by locally trained horse Wizz Kid, who certainly lived up to his name on that occasion.

Wizz Kid’s jockey was the wily Frenchman Gerald Mosse.

So, when the trainer of Mabs Cross Michael Dods asked me who I wanted to ride in the 2018 race I said Mosse.

We said to Mosse: “Listen, you beat us by a neck on Wizz Kid.

“I want you to do the same again.”

Gerard was smiling and said, ‘Oh yes. I remember that well. On the line…on the line…It was so close, wasn’t it’?

And do you know what, he did just that.

It was a ride of perfection from Mosse.

He brought Mabs Cross out of the clouds and, whoosh, she lunged late to claim the £175,000 first prize.

Shortly afterwards, Mabs Cross – named after an ancient stone monument in Wigan – was declared Sprinter of the Year at the prestigious Cartier Awards in London and what a memorable day that was.

John Gosden was very complimentary, saying small breeding operations like us provided the backbone of the industry, and that meant an enormous amount coming from such an esteemed and respected trainer.

But I’m still as ambitious as ever in racing.

I’d like to win a Classic and we did once have Garswood in the 2,000 Guineas, finishing seventh to Dawn Approach.

Breeding is my passion, though, and I’m more interested in breeding horses than racing them.

I want to breed the best horses we can, whether it becomes a stallion or a top mare.

It’s a big dipper of a ride, and you’ve got to be a stayer and keep going.

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David Armstrong was talking to Tony Dewhurst