Probert seals title as focus turns to Flat

DAVID Probert has been confirmed as the British Champion All-Weather Jockey for 2021-22.

The Bargoed-born jockey finished with 82 winners, 20 clear of Hollie Doyle.

He said: “It’s great. It’s rolled on from a very good season last season, but I’ve been very lucky to ride for plenty of different trainers.

“It means a lot to win and it’s a big achievement.”

He is 12-1 to be champion for the turf season, which runs from this weekend to Champions Day in October. Probert was at Newbury on Sunday, where he won on the debutant Holguin for the Andrew Balding yard.

Bernard Llewellyn scored a rare double on Saturday in the two divisions of the twomile handicap hurdle that concluded the Newton Abbot card. First was the 16-1 shot Mind Hunter, getting off the mark at the 10th attempt.

Half an hour later stablemate Cogital won easily at odds of 12-1. It was the horse’s fifth win since joining the yard. Llewellyn trained the second horse as well, Ascot Day.

Also on Saturday, the David Evanstrained Alablaq recorded his second course and distance victory of 2022 on Lingfield’s six-furlong Polytrack. The 15-8 favourite got up to win in the final stride.

The gelding spent a year on the sidelines prior to being sold to Evans for 10,000 guineas. He’s run well in most of his races since and is entered in a similar event at Lingfield this evening.

Welsh success is expected at every Ffos Las meeting, and on Sunday there was a 1-2-3 for local trainers in the two-mile chase. Sean Bowen, riding for David Rees, drove Dunbar ahead on the run-in to deprive Evan Williams’s Heronord and Tim Vaughan’s Isle of Aron.

It was Dunbar’s first win, on his 20th start under National Hunt Rules, overcoming a 304-day absence since his last outing.

Bowen completed a double on his father’s 11-year-old Lord Bryan. Jumping well, albeit slightly to the right, he duelled with Mr Katanga for most of the way but had enough petrol in the tank to win by a length and a quarter.

There was a crowd of more than 4,000 at Ffos Las on the first Easter Family Day since 2019.

Christian Williams was on the mark at Plumpton where Jony Max took the lead approaching the last fence in the threemile chase and won by four lengths.