Newton Abbot’s summer jumps meeting on Friday evening proved highly profitable for Welsh raiders, who succeeded in five of the seven races.
James Davies rode Dame Sarra to victory in only her second outing over hurdles. She won twice on the all-weather for Ed Dunlop last year and showed grit to hold off a Fergal O’Brien odds-on shot. After a month and a half of the new season that was Davies’s seventh winner, only two fewer than he rode in the whole of 2023/24.
The eleven-year-old No Getaway scored for Robbie Llewellyn in the two-mile chase. The veteran has been running in hunter chases over further and fell last time out at the Devon course, but suffered no lasting ill-effects, returning to win there for the second time. It was jockey Charlie Price’s first jumps winner of the season.
In the long-distance chase James Bowen rode Neil Mulholland’s Broomfields Cave, who showed great tenacity to overcome his principal opponent on the run-in. He might not have won if the other one hadn’t persistently jumped to the right, which wasted a lot of ground over three and a quarter miles on a tight left-handed circuit like Newton Abbot.
Jack Tudor (photographed) rode a confident race on Hammer Dan, who hammered the punters by winning at 12/1. Form figures of 20776/0P- will have deterred most people. Trainer David Pipe put the improvement down to the faster going. The result might have been different if the leader at the last hurdle hadn’t made a bad blunder.
Finally, Peter, Micky and Sean Bowen won the bumper with their debutant Alan De Banks. The horse, bought as a yearling by Sean and his brother James four years ago, was fully ten lengths behind the three leaders turning into the straight. He made laboured progress in pursuit before suddenly producing a great burst of speed to win.
Tudor and Pipe were in the Uttoxeter winners enclosure the following evening after Mr Tambourine Man took the three-mile hurdle convincingly. The same combination won by six lengths at Worcester last month and the horse defied a six-pound rise to win this similar contest by a slightly greater margin.
Ben Jones rode the Ben Pauling-trained Just Chasing May to land a novices hurdle at Uttoxeter on Saturday evening. In April he put in a much-improved effort to finish third, and in May he had just been headed when falling with Jones at the final flight. This time, running off a lowly mark of 78, he won easily.
David Evans was due to have a rare runner over jumps at Stratford on Tuesday. Lookingdandy won a mile and a half handicap at Leicester last month and now tries hurdles. He was well beaten in six races over timber before joining Evans but perhaps he can do better now that he’s broken his duck on the flat.
Ffos Las’s 15th Birthday Race Day takes place on Sunday, with live music before and after a seven-race programme.
