We can now safely refer to Sean Bowen as the new champion jockey, with 172 winners in the bag – plus one in Ireland that put the icing on the cake; Monday’s Irish Grand National, aboard Haiti Couleurs for Rebecca Curtis. The horse had won the National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival under Ben Jones because Bowen, his regular pilot, was claimed to ride for Olly Murphy. He was fortunate to be reunited, insofar as he’d had a six-day suspension reduced to four, which meant he could ride in this race.
Haiti Couleurs sweated up beforehand but was always in or near the front of the 30-strong field, and he was allowed to bowl along at a leisurely pace, jumping soundly. From the point four fences out when Bowen started to apply pressure, his rivals could never quite get on terms. Having scooped the 270,000 euros first prize Curtis and the horse’s owners, the Bristol-based Brizzle Boys, can now dream of next year’s Grand National or even the Gold Cup.
It’s easy to overlook that James Bowen has also had his best ever campaign, with 82 winners to date. Their father Peter has announced that he will relinquish his training licence on 1 May to leave his eldest son Mickey in sole charge of the yard. The Haverfordwest team has sent out over a thousand winners over 30 years and it looks set to carry on in the same vein for a long time to come.
It was an excellent Easter for Evan Williams too. There was a double for him and Adam Wedge at Newton Abbot on Saturday. Their first winner was Pooroldmackley, who was tried unsuccessfully over three miles and two miles in his last couple of outings, but this time 2m5f proved just right. He was well on top at the end. It was only his second race over fences and shouldn’t go up much from his lowly current rating of 73.
Though Puddlesinthepark had only won on good and good to soft in the past, his name suggested he wouldn’t mind the heavy going at the Abbot, and he was an easy winner of the 3m2f chase. Few of his seven opponents could cope with the ground or the trip and before reaching the home turn there was only one who could stay anywhere near him.
Williams registered another double at Chepstow on Monday. First was handicap debutant The Magus, with his usual jockey Conor Ring. He’d improved with each of his three previous starts, and the progression continued. He showed battling qualities to keep a narrow lead on the run-in and on breeding should get further than the 2m3f of this race.
Half an hour later, Wedge was on stablemate Tom Taggle to break his duck in a 15-runner handicap hurdle. A combination of good ground and three miles for the first time proved to be a successful formula.
The golden spring of Lorcan Williams and Jeremy Scott carried on at Chepstow with the victory of debutant Pink Pony Club in a bumper. The horse knew his job and, in an exciting finish, got the better of a tussle with the favourite, a dual winner, by half a length. Two wins for Devon trainer Jane Williams meant five of the eight races there were went to assorted Williamses.
Scott and Williams had also been in the Haydock winners' enclosure on Saturday when Elusiveness, the outsider of five, won a three-mile hurdle. Since blinkers were applied, the mare has scored three times in a row. And Callum Pritchard recorded his thirteenth winner in the last seven weeks on the diminutive, well-named Tiny Tetley in the Challenger Stayers Hurdle Final at the Lancashire track.
