Bryony Frost is looking forward to her first ride in the Cheltenham Gold Cup on board King George hero Frodon, but the brightest female star in the British weighing room is also involved in a British Horseracing Authority investigation that, for the moment, remains opaque.
Frodon and Frost delivered a 20-1 shock in Kempton's festive feature on St Stephen's day, but the winning rider has hinted in a number of subsequent interviews that some of her experiences of the jockeys' inner sanctum of the weighing room have caused her distress.
However, an ongoing BHA investigation into her concerns precludes the 25-year-old from elaborating further, for now.
"There's a BHA inquiry going on at the minute and it's something that I can't say anything or shed any light into at the moment as the inquiry is taking place," she explained on RTÉ's Game On.
The daughter of Grand National-winning jockey Jimmy Frost, Bryony broke Lucy Alexander's record of 174 victories for a female National Hunt rider in Britain when the Paul Nicholls-trainer Frodon scored his Grade One win. The learning curve to get to this point has been a steep one.
"The last three years have been a bit of a whirlwind for a little kid who was down in Devon, that was extremely feral and that just used to live with her ponies," she admitted.
"It was a big enough step coming into Ditcheat and into the team there with everybody.
"At the end of the day, I'm going out there and doing what I did as a kid, I'm galloping with my horses and luckily I've got a job that I love to do and seem to be OK at it."
What a team! Frodon and Bryony Frost make all to win the @Ladbrokes King George VI Chase. A 12th King George success for trainer @PFNicholls pic.twitter.com/Xbp8T2ZzJi
— Kempton Park Racecourse (@kemptonparkrace) December 26, 2020
Looking ahead to her March engagement with Frodon, who triumphed over a shorter trip at the 2019 Cheltenham Festival in the Ryanair Chase, Frost said: "I've never ridden in a Gold Cup before, but I sure know it's relentless.
"It's going to be a battle and nothing is going to be easy.
"Those top races, Grade Ones, the horses are at such a level that they can go near enough flat out and perform at that for nearly the whole duration of the race, whatever distance it is."
Three miles in the King George around speed-favouring Kempton and the Gold Cup over two-and-a-half furlongs further at a testing Cheltenham present rather different challenges. However, Frost believes a more mature Frodon is up to the task.
"As he's got a year older, he's seeing out three miles a lot stronger than he ever has done previously," she said.
"The Gold Cup was always on his radar. However, the last two or three furlongs of a three mile race were quite difficult for him, and in a race in which they go so flat out and so hard, that was always going to be a question so we always stuck to the two-and-a-half miles, which we know we are good at.
"But I wouldn't change him for anything."
