JACK POTT!
National pride as Tudor and Williams land top Welsh prize
WALES and Lions centre Jonathan Davies heaped praise on trainer Christian Wi l - liams as he celebrated winning the Coral Welsh Grand National as the owner of Potters Corner yesterday.
The length and three- quarters victory of the 8-1 shot, partnered by 17-year-old jockey Jack Tudor, was the first win for a Welsh-trained horse in the principality’s biggest race since Denzil Jenkins’ Norther triumphed in 1965.
Davies is recovering from knee surgery, having been injured at the rugby World Cup. But he could have a shot at the Grand National to look forward to, with Williams indicating that Aintree will be the destination if the ground is soft.
Should Potters Corner make it to Liverpool his preparation will have echoes of Red Rum.
Leg problems of his own mean Potters Corner spends half his training week galloping through the surf on Traeth yr Afon beach close to Williams’ base in the Vale of Glamorgan. He finishes most of his other workouts standing in the cooling waters of the Ewenny and Ogmore rivers which run through the trainer’s stable.
On this most Welsh of racedays, with the national anthem sung by Bryn Terfel, Davies and his fellow syndicate owners barely had a moment’s worry as the nine-yearold who won last season’s Midlands National sat behind pacesetters Yala Enki (third) and The Two Amigos (fifth) before striking for home at the third last fence, finishing ahead of Truckers Lodge at Chepstow.
Davies, who also plays for Llanelli Scarlets, said: ‘That was pretty special. Normally I have something to do with the outcome. Today I was just a bystander. We always had the confidence he could run all day and today he showed that.
‘It’s a great effort by Christian. He probably sat on 30 horses until we bought him and Christian thought he had found a little bit of a diamond in the Potter. We won the Six Nations Grand Slam the day he won the Midlands National and I was more happy about how he won! These are great days.
‘It great day for the syndicate and whatever Christian decides next I will have faith in him.’
As a jockey Williams was the first man to win a race under rules on the great Denman while working for trainer Paul Nicholls and went agonisingly close to winning the Welsh National when Halcon Genelardais went down by a head to Miko De Beauchene 12 years ago after a costly last-fence error.
A Cheltenham fall in which Williams broke both arms ended his career and he eventually turned to training. When he arrived at his current base 16 months ago he had just three horses and no licence but unsurprisingly Williams said he now finds training more rewarding than riding as a jockey.
He added: ‘It is so much better. You are with them every day and I rode Potters Corner on Christmas day. You live and breathe them. We just need a profile horse like t this. We’ll have to think about Aintree now. We have money in the ki kitty now.’ Dan Skelton-trained Allmankind A should be a disaster of a racehorse. Untrainable at home and so headstrong during a race that jockey Harry Skelton describes hi himself as a passenger, he looks as though he shou should run out of gas with a at least two furlongs to run. But he has now won all his three hurdle races and is 10-1 for the Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival after a nine-length win from Cerberus in the Grade One Finale Hurdle. Dan conceded: ‘He’s a bit freaky.’