Three Welsh winners at Friday’s Unibet Jump Season Opener at Chepstow made it the nation’s best day at the meeting since 2015.
In the first race, Division 1 of a novice hurdle, Rebecca Curtis’s Irish point winner Ben Solo was always up with the pace and stayed on well having taken the lead early in the straight. Appropriately, Ben Jones was the winning rider. He reported that the horse was still very green and should come on for the race. Longer distances will help him and the plan is to go chasing next season.
Division 2 brought the second Welsh success, Palacio. Sam Thomas doesn’t train many 20/1 winners, but this one’s odds can be explained by the horse’s two runs in bumpers last season, in which the latter showed just a glimmer of promise. This time he made all the running and went clear in the home straight. Though the runner-up closed in on Palacio between the last two hurdles, he kept on well. He is another horse for the future. Five-pound claimer Dylan Johnston was riding his first winner for Dai Walters, for whom he is principal jockey. His connection with the stable grew from the time when he rode I will do it to finish third in the Welsh National.
The leading novice of the summer jumps season, Flying Fortune, won the Grade 2 Unibet Persian War Hurdle for Peter, Micky and James Bowen. She is the first mare to win this race since 2006 and not only was she completing a four-timer, she did so more easily than in her last three starts. She may now go for the Challow Hurdle at the end of December.
At Saturday’s meeting Jack Tudor rode the winner of the Native River Chase, Neon Moon. The consistent eight-year-old, trained by David Pipe, won from four pounds out of the handicap, although his task was made easier by the underperformance of several others.
36 of the 63 runners at Ffos Las on Sunday were Welsh-trained or ridden and they won three races between them.
In the two-mile Dragon Bet Norton’s Coin Novice Chase Booster Bob was a generous 8/1 for the powerful Olly Murphy-Sean Bowen combination. He jumped well and hit the front on the run-in to deny long-time leader Just Over Land, who was running for Dai Walters and Sam Thomas.
Two Thomas-Walters stablemates battled out the finish of the Dragon Bet Welsh Champion Hurdle. Steel Ally and the well-supported Lump Sum drew clear of the opposition and two out Lump Sum forged ahead on his own. Idling on the run-in, he allowed Steel Ally to get to within a length. It was Dylan Johnston’s second winner for the yard in three days. Our photograph shows Mr Walters with James Lovell from the sponsors Dragon Bet.
The good form of Rebecca Curtis carried on when the 9/4 favourite Boston Joe ran out a 20-length winner in the two-mile handicap chase. Ben Jones had to survive a mistake at the second last and admitted afterwards that despite extensive schooling the horse has his own way of getting over an obstacle.
The next fixture at Ffos Las is Sunday 10th November when it’s Countryside Day.
