Chepstow survived two inspections on Sunday morning before going ahead on ground that was inevitably heavy, and with visibility greatly reduced by fog. The opener brought the second win of 2025 for Sam Thomas’s Katate Dori, who won a three-mile conditional jockeys chase at Exeter on New Year’s Day comfortably, carrying 12 stone. This time he carried 12-7 minus Dylan Johnston’s three-pound allowance over three and a quarter miles and won almost as easily, despite some less than perfect jumps in the home straight.
In the next, a two-mile novice hurdle, Carismatic Soldier ran second for most of the way, jumping indifferently. Nevertheless, a trademark Sean Bowen (photographed) drive got him home first, a length and a half in front of the doubly-penalised winner who had led and been going best during all the visible parts of the race.
Jockeys felt that further rain since the first race had made the waterlogged ground unsafe in places and consequently the meeting was abandoned.
The loss of most of Saturday’s racing didn’t mean gloom and doom for everyone. Thomas Faulkner sent Desiderata to Wolverhampton that evening from his Monmouthshire base and he won at 66/1.
Desiderata means “things wanted or needed” and the horse had certainly been found wanting in six outings for his previous trainer Ryan Potter. He didn’t beat a single rival in his first four starts, two bumpers and two flat races over a mile. In the next two on the flat he was eleventh and twelfth. The only rays of light were that in his initial bumper he was returned at 6/1, indicating that he must have shown some ability at home; and that last time out twelfth place was only six lengths behind the winner, much closer than any of his earlier efforts.
This was Desiderata’s first run for Faulkner, who reported afterwards that he had worked well in the week before the race. A good run was expected, but the decisiveness of this success was astonishing, especially after being one of the last to leave the stalls. Jockey Finley Marsh only had to give his horse a touch with the whip once. Cherry King, the odds-on favourite, was left toiling in his wake three lengths in arrears.
David Probert’s record over distances from 1m4f and 1m7f has always been above his general average and he enhanced that with a victory in the 1m6f handicap aboard Hugo Palmer’s Roaring Legend. He’d won a couple of novice hurdles for Olly Murphy in 2024, ridden by Sean Bowen on the latter occasion. On his latest start he made a disappointing debut over fences, so he relished the absence of obstacles this evening and with ten stone on his back routed his opponents to win by six lengths. His owner, Welshman Alan Peterson, won last year’s Chester Cup with Zoffee, so that may be on this horse’s agenda now.
Our opening meeting of 2025 at Ffos Las is Thursday 30th January.
