All geared up for highlight of the season
THIS Sunday we hold our richest race of the season, the £40,000 Welsh Champion Hurdle.
At Ffos Las the two-mile contest has been won by some top-class horses including Oscar Whisky, The New One and in 2018 the Welsh-trained Silver Streak.
Let’s hope we see another potential star in this year’s event, which is live on Sky Sports Racing with the first race off at 1pm. Also on the card is the Norton’s Coin Cup Novices’ Chase, run in memory of the Carmarthenshire-trained 100-1 winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1990.
This is our third meeting in October and it’s been great to get back racing after a summer without any action due to the coronavirus pandemic. Our leading trainers Evan Williams and Peter Bowen were both on the scoresheet at our fixture last week.
Williams took the opening handicap chase with Mouseinthehouse and Bowen was successful with Dalkingstown in the novices’ hurdle. Another Welsh trainer in the winner’s enclosure was Rebecca Curtis, who scored with the odds-on favourite Legends Gold.
Obviously, it is extremely challenging for the business trading without crowds and we also have restrictions on the number of owners who can attend. But the main thing is we actually have racing taking place which means we can generate income from media rights.
We are in constant touch with the Welsh Government about the possibilities of crowd trials, but that seems unlikely in the near future.
Last weekend at our sister course Chepstow, the 11-times champion trainer Paul Nicholls saddled eight winners in the 16 races at the two-day Unibet Jump Season Opener.
His most impressive success came when Mcfabulous won the Grade 2 Unibet Persian War Novices’ Hurdle easily under Harry Cobden.
There was a memorable Welsh win in the John Ayres Memorial Handicap Chase when Pink Eyed Pedro took the prize for trainer David Brace and his grandson jockey Connor. Pink Eyed Pedro won the Dunraven Bowl at Chepstow in 2019, sponsored by the Brace family. It was really exciting to see him return to form for one of Chepstow’s biggest sponsors.