Bowen shows his class with superb finish

WE have a short break before our next meeting at Ffos Las on Tuesday, January 31.

We are keeping admission prices extremely keen for this fixture with tickets just £15 in advance and £19.50 on the day.

There is also a Day At The Races package for £19.50 which includes admission, a drink, a pie and a raceday programme. This is a limited offer and for advance bookings only. See the website for details of how to book.

Sean Bowen produced one of the rides of the season at our opening meeting of 2023 last Thursday. Riding Best Trition for trainer Olly Murphy and owners Foxtrot Racing, he jumped the last fence in the three-mile chase in second place, some three and a half lengths behind the leader Dentley De Mee, who looked to be heading for victory on the testing ground.

However, Bowen had other ideas as he galvanised his mount on the run-in to win by a short head.

There was no shortage of runners at Chepstow’s meeting on Sunday, where the going was soft.

Several Welsh-trained and ridden runners competed in the opening novice hurdle, and it was Richard Patrick who came out on top aboard the favourite Atlanta Brave. His stamina served him well, overtaking Sam Thomas’s Ed Keeper on the run-in.

Evan Williams’s Zero Tolerance led for most of the race and although he faded back into fourth, it was a promising effort. The stable was pleased with the secondplace finish of L’astroboy in Saturday’s Grade 1 Tolworth Hurdle at Sandown.

Williams and owners William and Angela Rucker introduce many of their good horses at Chepstow. Their dual bumper winner Libberty Hunter got off the mark over obstacles in the two-mile novices’ hurdle, putting a scruffy round of jumping last time behind him. The second had won a similar race by 21 lengths on his previous outing, and with the rest of the field trailing in at long intervals, the form looks good.

Racing on the all-weather tracks bubbles along and David Probert has been riding at the top of his game. His mounts at Kempton on Friday produced the remarkable sequence of results of 2211212.

On Saturday he rode two more winners there. Trainer Andrew Balding supplied three of those five winners, and the pair were successful again at Southwell on Sunday when Probert got Berkshire Phantom home in a seven-furlong maiden.