Shaping up for one of busiest days of the year
WE’VE got a busy week preparing for our Family Race Day on Easter Sunday, April 17 – it’s likely to be one of the busiest fixtures of the year so we’re hoping for superb weather.
The gates open at 11am and the first of seven races is off at 1pm. There is plenty of family entertainment including fun fair rides, face painters, Harry Potter characters and show, bouncy castles, go karts, an Easter egg hunt and free ice creams for the first 150 children.
Tickets are £17 in advance rising to £22 on the day. Children aged 17 and under go free and parking is free. There is a free shuttle bus from Llanelli rail station with timings available on our website.
Sam Waley-cohen, who won the Grand National on Noble Yeats at the weekend, is no stranger to Wales. And Saturday’s epic race is not the only Grand National that Sam has won – former French steeplechaser Down, owned and trained by Warwickshire’s Robert Waley-cohen and confidently ridden by his then 20-year-old son Sam, landed the Welsh Point-to-point Grand National at the Pentyrch Hunt Steeplechases at Bonvilston in May 2002.
Sam and Down went on to win the race in 2003 and 2004. On the latter occasion at Bonvilston, Dai Jones, father of jockey Ben and now clerk of the course at Ffos Las, rode a treble.
There were Welsh winners on the Thursday and Friday of the Aintree meeting. The Last Day won the Grade 3 Red Rum Handicap Chase for Evan Williams, Adam Wedge and Mr & Mrs William Rucker. It was a second course and distance triumph for the useful 10-year-old, whose eightrace chasing career has been punctuated by interruptions of 237, 392 and 353 days. He’s been difficult to train but repaid connections’ faith this time.
Mac Tottie’s victory in Friday’s Topham Chase over the big fences for Peter and Sean Bowen was further distinguished by the obvious delight of Sean’s brother James. The horse was normally James’s ride – Mac Tottie had won the Grand Sefton in November with him on board – but here he had been claimed to ride one for the Henderson stable. That horse unseated him at the first fence.
Watching the race unfold on the big screen, James ran the length of the run-in almost as fast as Mac Tottie to cheer on and greet his brother as he pulled up after the winning post.
It was Peter Bowen’s fifth success in the race. Asked about this fine record, he suggested that their practice of loose schooling horses over obstacles at home may have made them better equipped to tackle the National fences.
Sean Bowen returned to the winners’ enclosure in contrasting circumstances on Sunday, taking a three-horse race at Stratford by 18 lengths and 40.
Hillview, his mount, is trained by Gary Hanmer – it was his 30th winner of this campaign; his previous best was eight. Bowen has ridden
10 of those.