Our fixture this Wednesday 6th November is now an eight-race card starting at 12.20 pm – the last race is 4.05 pm. It’s Military Race Day raising money for Combat Stress, the Chelsea Pensioners and SSAFA, the armed forces charity. There are 92 runners declared with six entries from the yard of this season’s leading trainer Dan Skelton (photographed).
It was a frustrating weekend for Welsh trainers and jockeys, with only one winner between them.
Saturday brought no success and Sunday began and ended with disappointment. Connor Brace travelled to Carlisle to ride in the first two races for Fergal O’Brien. He began on Springtime Promise, a Grade 2 winner over hurdles making her chase debut in a small field. She ran respectably, but could only come in last of the three finishers. Their other runner, Shy Love, was second favourite but dropped out of contention in the final half mile, possibly having needed the outing.
Fourteen Welsh runners were declared at Huntingdon. Ben Jones was due to ride the odds-on No Questions Asked in the maiden hurdle, only for it to be withdrawn due to the faster than ideal going. The replacement favourite was The Gray Ghost, trained by Robbie Llewellyn. Ominously, the yard had been winnerless for 121 days and this horse stopped quickly on the turn into the straight and trailed in last. James Bowen was riding a 12/1 shot, Korus, who finished like a train but he couldn’t catch the 200/1 winner.
The tide turned briefly halfway through the afternoon. James’s mount in the mares’ novice hurdle was 13/8 but ran out of steam after the third last. However, James Davies’s ride, Ebselysees, ran on well to lead on the run-in and score at 18/1. She’d been a good fourth and a poor eighth in two bumpers in the spring. Hurdles clearly inspired improvement and she looked like a stayer in the making. This season has brought Davies his best strike rate (13%) and a level stakes profit of about £70 to a £1 stake.
Hopes were high for the Welsh in the two-mile chase, with interest in four of the six runners, yet second place was the best any of them could do. Ben Jones partnered the favourite in the finale, Just Chasing May, but given the way the day had gone it was no surprise he finished second.
At least Sean Bowen got one on the board on Friday, riding J P McManus’s Genois for Jonjo and AJ O’Neill. Bowen had only ridden for the Jackdaw’s Castle yard five times before. In what appeared to be a trappy contest Genois could be called the winner two fences out, before taking the lead at the last. He looks the sort to go in again.
The impressive winners of both divisions of last Tuesday’s maiden hurdles at Chepstow look set for a showdown in Newbury’s Challow Novices Hurdle at the end of December. Both Dan Skelton and Paul Nicholls, trainers of The New Lion and Quebecois respectively, are aiming them at the Grade 1 on the day after the Welsh Grand National. Chepstow’s annual highlight takes place on Friday 27 December.
