Oli Bell – The Rainbow Hunter

Features | 25th January 2018

Part of the ITV racing team of presenters covering this weekend’s racing action at Cheltenham and Doncaster, Oli Bell won’t need to spend too long thinking if asked about his favourite renewal of the £100,000 Sky Bet Chase, the main event from the Yorkshire track.

A photo of The Rainbow Hunter, a horse he co‐owned with three friends, jumping the final fence on his way to success in that contest in 2014, still hangs above the TV in his lounge at home. But it’s not as if he needs the picture to help him remember the sort of success than many racehorse owners could only dream about.

Having returned from a spell working in Australia only months before, Bell took a trip to the races at Ascot in the autumn of 2012, where some liquid refreshment combined with an encounter with trainer Kim Bailey saw him wake up the following morning with both a hangover and ownership of a racehorse.

Nick Scholfield with trainer Kim Bailey Doncaster 19.2.14

Bell moved quickly to rope in a trio of old pals to take 25 per cent each, but rather than reckless the investment proved inspired. As well as his Doncaster glory, The Rainbow Hunter claimed his only tiny slice of racing history as he lined up in three consecutive renewals of the world’s most famous jumps race, the Grand National, on one occasion giving Bell the most astonishing buzz when leading his rivals through the halfway point.

“When he ran in the race for the third time in 2015, he was in front as they headed out on to the second circuit,” Bell recalled. “We watched the Nationals from the same point each time, from close to the start. The four of us would watch it, with all of our families. It was a brilliant experience.

“You get a fantastic view as they come racing straight towards you at that point and when I saw him in front I turned to Kim and said ‘We’re leading the Grand National’. He just said ‘Shut up, will you?’. “The two previous years, he hadn’t got that far, but having got to the front, he basically was a bit over‐exuberant and burned himself out.

“However, for all that the bubble ultimately burst as he began to tire by Becher’s the second time around, it was a phenomenal feeling – I was getting all the feels, as I believe the youth might say!” After that race, The Rainbow Hunter was retired to live with his groom Tyler Daintith.

“It’s a funny thing because of course I didn’t have to do any of the real work with The Rainbow Hunter,” explains Bell. “It was Tyler who looked after him, and Kim and his assistant Mat Nicholls and all of the team there. And yet, despite that, you still feel like he’s yours and every time I look at his picture I feel proud.

“Obviously the win in the Sky Bet Chase was a fantastic highlight. The entry fees for the Grand National are quite expensive and we spent some of the prize money running him there three times, but even so we were still able to have a bit of a divvy‐up between the four of us and cover the cost of him being in training for three years.

https://youtu.be/h4b8MIMofZM

“I think what I really enjoyed about it most from a personal point of view, though, was being able to bring together people with different levels of knowledge and understand of the sport and see them and their families all almost literally catching the racing bug as we went along.”

Bell remains a committed supporter of the joys of joint‐ownership of horses. “I’ve owned a few small bits of horses now,” he continued. “I’ve got a syndicate now with some friends who play in a golf tournament each year that we call The Bearfight – The Bearfighter is in training with Charlie Fellowes and hopefully he’ll go on to be a reasonably decent horse this year.

“The thing is that you can do joint ownership with friends or strangers and it provides an opportunity for anyone to have a taste of what it’s like to be a racehorse owner without the full cost. “As someone who is involved in initiatives that are trying to bring more people into racing, this is something that I have seen the benefits of first‐hand. It was a remarkable experience”