We have two more race meetings in May at Ffos Las – on the 22nd and 27th. The latter being Rum N Reggae Race Night with the Bob Marley tribute band, Trenchtown Experience, playing live after racing. Tickets just £21 in advance and hospitality packages are available – all the details are on the website. Our final jump meeting until October takes place on Thursday 8th June – we then start flat racing on Sunday 25th June when we welcome The Wurzels for Beer and Cider Race Day.
Adam Wedge (photographed) won the biggest jump race of the month, Saturday’s £100,000 Swinton Handicap Hurdle at Haydock. His guv’nor Evan Williams has won it four times, but on this occasion he was riding Kerry Lee’s Black Poppy. The horse was in top form following a Cheltenham victory in April. He hardly ever runs a bad race and this was his fifth success in 13 starts, four of them at this time of year.
Wedge’s only ride on Sunday was Happy Index, in a 2m5f hurdle at Ludlow, when he got down to his minimum weight of ten stone two pounds. The horse had gone close over course and distance in April in his first run in a handicap. As a five-year-old, with only five races under his belt, he had scope to do better. The in-form jockey is off to Perth on Thursday for some good rides for Laura Morgan, who supplied him with 14 winners last season.
There was further joy for the Welsh later on that Haydock card when Flying Fortune won her second bumper for Peter and Sean Bowen. The penalised four-year-old filly went clear in the final quarter of a mile, relishing the fast ground. Knowing how well the Bowens school their horses, she can bring them more success if she goes over hurdles in the summer.
The Bernard Llewellyn stable hasn’t been having too many runners lately, and no winners on the flat since August until Saturday night at Leicester. There they took the mile and a half seller with Zuraig, with Jordan Williams riding. The horse has been hard work for the stable, for he bled on his first start for them in October and has developed a habit of starting slowly. Tried over a longer distance this time, he got to the front with a mile to go and never looked back. The field was strung out at long intervals at the finish.
Sheila Lewis’s Tom O’Roughley resumed winning ways at Warwick. Since joining her yard a year ago he was consistent without winning, coming fourth four times in a row, until he broke his duck at Worcester in a three mile chase in September. He couldn’t follow up over course and distance three weeks later. Sent off at 11/1 refreshed by a seven month break, Tom’s jumping was sketchy early on, but he warmed to his task and jockey Lorcan Murtagh urged him into a clear lead leaving the back straight. Although he faded in the closing stages, he was able to hang on by a neck from stablemate Junior Massini. The third horse, Joey Steel, was trained by Christian Williams to make a Welsh 1-2-3, all at double-figure odds; the Tricast paid more than £4,000
