James Bowen’s victory on board Jonbon in Ascot’s Grade 1 Clarence House Chase capped another stunning weekend for Welsh racing.
Big-race winner followed big-race winner as the growing feelgood factor around the sport in Wales showed no sign of fading.
There was more Graded success at Lingfield, prestigious handicap wins at Ascot and Haydock and a treble for Sean Bowen thrown in for good measure. But it was his younger brother James who, for the second Saturday in a row, grabbed his place in the limelight.
A week earlier at Kempton, Bowen had won the valuable Lanzarote Hurdle on the back-to-form Iberico Lord. That was a fairly smooth success.
But Saturday’s win in the same green and gold colours of JP McManus on Jonbon was
anything but straightforward. An hour earlier Bowen hadn’t even been meant to ride
Nicky Henderson’s star two-miler. But he was handed a dramatic late call-up when Harry Cobden, his intended partner, was injured in a fall in an earlier race.
For much of the contest Jonbon appeared to be on the back foot as Thistle Ask set a strong gallop. But Jonbon’s stamina kicked in two fences from home and he stayed on strongly to collar the pace-setter on the run-in and win the race for the second year in a row by three lengths.
It made Bowen the third Welshman to ride a winner on the card. Lorcan Williams took the 2m 3f hurdle on Came From Nowhere, while Ben Jones had earlier ridden his second double in as many days, making most of the running on The Jukebox Kid to capture the three-mile handicap chase, then follow up by taking the valuable mares’ hurdle with Ooh Betty.
It was also the day when Vincenzo finally got his name in lights. Sam Thomas’s inmate was beaten into second in both the Paddy Power Gold Cup and December Gold Cup at Cheltenham earlier this term, but he made no mistake here with a strong late surge carrying him to victory in a £100,000 2m 5f handicap chase.
It was the start of a double for Thomas, jockey Dylan Johnston and owner Dai Walters, whose Whiskey Yankee took the concluding novices’ hurdle.
Porth-both jockey Callum Pritchard rode the biggest winner of his career when partnering the well-backed Imperial Saint to a narrow success in the Peter Marsh Chase at Haydock, bagging a first prize of almost £57,000 in the process.
And over at Taunton, Sean Bowen was busy riding the first three winners on the card, all for different trainers.
The action at Windsor on Friday and Sunday saw more success for Jones. He bagged the Grade 2 Lightning Novices’ Chase on No Questions Asked – one of a plentiful supply
of two-mile chasers trainer Ben Pauling can rely on – and won a mares’ chase on Bluey for Emma Lavelle.
Jones then teamed up with Evan Williams on Sunday to win a staying chase with Neo King (photographed). The next meeting at Ffos Las is on Friday, January 30.
