Our next race meeting at Ffos Las is this Thursday 9th February. We have seven races from 1.23pm. Tickets are £15 in advance and £19.50 on the day. We then have a break until our Proud To Be Welsh Race Day on Sunday 5th March.
Chepstow’s Friday card was a benefit for the Jonjo O’Neill team; father and son combined to have three winners. It would have been four but for Evan Williams and Adam Wedge, whose Doyen Star made all in the 2m novice hurdle and repelled the challenge of the O’Neills’ odds-on runner-up. He’s owned by William and Angela Rucker and this win, under a penalty, entitles him to take his chance in one of the Cheltenham novices. even though there are several ahead of him in the betting.
James Bowen rode City Chief to victory for Nicky Henderson in Saturday’s Towton Chase, a valuable 3m novice chase won last year by Ahoy Senor with the subsequent Grand National winner Noble Yeats second. Apart from one anxious moment at the third last he jumped well. His task in the four-runner field was made easier by the flop of the Skelton-trained odds-on favourite. It was only City Chief’s third steeplechase. He has plenty of stamina and Bowen suggested the Scottish National might be an alternative target to the National Hunt Chase.
Charlie Price (photographed), who is attached to Tim Vaughan’s yard, has ridden some big-price winners this season for other trainers – 100/1, 80/1 and 28/1 – and he added another on Saturday at Wetherby. There he steered the 40/1 shot Long Symphony to win the bumper. Trained by Laura Horsfall at Towcester, he was expected to need the run after almost two years off, but he held on gamely. Price is due to partner a stablemate, Monymusk Lad, at Doncaster on Thursday. Could there be yet another long-odds winner in the offing?
On Sunday Sheila Lewis, who combines training with her Brecon hairdressing business, ran the strongly fancied Family Pot in the 3m chase at Hereford. In a race that turned into a chapter of accidents, with half of the ten runners failing to complete, the consistent grey was always going well. He neatly avoided all the fallers and trotted up by 11 lengths.
Later Peter Bowen was in the Hereford winners’ enclosure with Rooster Cogburn, who was back on the decent ground he needs. He was also racing from four pounds below the handicap mark from which he last scored, in July. Ben Jones was riding his first winner for the yard, benefitting from the absence of both of the trainer’s sons. James was at Musselburgh for one ride, which was unplaced, and Sean is suspended until the 15th of this month. One consolation is that Sean’s seasonal tally stands at a personal best 102. By the end of the campaign, he should be close to a career total of 700.
Evan and Isabel Williams provided the third Welsh winner of the day at Hereford when Out Of Focus made virtually all the running in the bumper. Fourth of 11 at Ffos Las on heavy ground in his sole previous outing, the promise of that effort was confirmed on this very different track and going.
