OF all the winners Bryony Frost had ever ridden, few had ever been quite so emotional — and it was little to do with the size of the race.
Landing the Tingle Creek, a Grade One chase at Sandown, was clearly a delight as she roared home on Greaneteen two weeks ago.
Yet the cheers of the crowd on the way back to the winners’ enclosure were about far more than punters having lined their pockets.
It was the most public show of faith, love and support that Bryony had indeed done the right thing in going to the BHA to complain about Robbie Dunne’s bullying.
And they were not shy in letting the world know where their affections lay, as she was wildly applauded and given three cheers.
Frost said: “That was the moment I felt I was right, I wasn’t on my own.
“That support from the racing public, they have been like a mass family. I felt the really personal thumbs ups, ‘you’re doing ace, keep kicking, stay who you are’.
“I had never felt it on such a level. Every eye contact at Sandown I made, every cheer, really hit me . . . and at every racecourse since.
“At Sandown I didn’t want to do my interview coming back in because I felt I wasn’t giving enough back to them for the support they showed.
“And being lost for words just isn’t me!”
Frost was also keen to put things straight on the comment that caused an outcry in the case, when Louis Weston QC, who represented the BHA, called the weighing room culture “rancid”.
Despite being isolated at times, Frost, 26, insisted: “It’s important to say there are extremely professional, good people in the weighing room.
“They’re not all like that — far from it.
‘LOTS OF REALLY GOOD PEOPLE’
“Not everyone in there should be tarnished with that brush.
“There are lots of really good people inside.”
Even so, there were occasions leading up to and during the case where Frost was made to feel something of an outsider.
Last week they finally began to change for the better once more.
She revealed: “I’ve already been made to feel I am part of the weighing room, they do want me to sit down and have a cup of tea with them.
“I haven’t felt like that for some time.”
