Our next fixture is our opening flat meeting of the year this Thursday 28th April when there are seven races from 4.30pm. Tickets are just £15 in advance and £20 on the day. The restaurant has a great value package for £49 which includes admission and a two-course carvery meal. To book please go the website.
We are also just over two months until Paloma Faith plays live after racing on Ladies Evening, Friday 8th July. Tickets are available priced at £40.
Looking back at the jump season that ended on Saturday, the leading Welsh jockeys were Sean Bowen 95 (who finished 5th in the jockeys’ table), James Bowen 74 (10th) and Adam Wedge 70 (13th). Ben Jones secured 40 winners during the season, Richard Patrick 31 and Lorcan Williams registered his personal best with 23 successes.
Evan Williams was the leading trainer, winning 53 races and earning £888,252 to finish 16th in the national league table. Christian Williams was 24th, with 34 wins and £659,025. Sam Thomas’s 20 winners helped him earn £486,226 and Peter Bowen’s 35 yielded £437,288.
Among the leading owners, Walters Plant Hire & Potter Group were 7th, with prize money of £289,504, but their percentages excelled. 15 out of 49 (31%) of their runners were winners. Even more remarkable was the fact that out of the eleven horses they ran, nine of them won. That 82% success rate is far and away the best in the top owners list, ignoring those with just a few horses.
Similarly efficient was the training of David Brace’s horses. Six of the twelve that ran in his ownership won. From 61 runners he had ten winners, nine seconds, seven thirds and eight fourths out of 61 runners.
Harry Cobden’s four-timer for champion trainer Paul Nicholls at Sandown on Saturday left him on the 99-winner mark for the campaign. Lorcan Williams was also on the scoresheet riding McFabulous to victory for the Nicholls yard in the Grade 2 Select Hurdle. The trainer said the horse likes good ground and going right-handed, but he already has a novice chase at Chepstow’s Unibet Jump Season Opener in mind for his fencing debut.
At Bath on Sunday, Grace Harris’s well-supported Symbol Of Hope rewarded his hopeful backers with a victory in the opening sprint. He was walked to the start and arrived there nice and calm. Jockey Ray Dawson was hoping for a lead, but the horse was quickly away and made all the running to score by two and a half lengths.
