Flying James keeping tabs on his brother

TOURISM and events students from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David rolled up their sleeves last Wednesday and helped manage our race day at Ffos Las. The group helped manage the entire operation for the meeting, working across a variety of roles from general manager to organising kitchen staff. It was an excellent community partnership and we look forward to developing the initiative. Our next fixture is on Thursday, April 7, which coincides with the opening day of the Aintree Grand National meeting. We have seven races from 1pm and advance tickets are £17. There’s a fixture at Chepstow this Saturday with The Wurzels playing after racing. The first race is off at 1.08pm. The first day of the flat season on turf saw David Probert add another winner to the 50 he has already accumulated on the all-weather. Groundbreaker’s four-length victory in the 10-furlong maiden was achieved despite running keenly in the early stages. Probert’s turf campaign should benefit from the absence of the suspended champion jockey Oisin Murphy, who rode 40 winners last year for Balding, the Welshman’s main employer. James Bowen can often be found at some farflung meeting riding a Nicky Henderson horse in a bumper. The one he rode in at Kelso on Saturday was worth more than £15,000 to the winner and his mount Bold Reaction duly obliged. Bowen is enjoying a purple patch, and a double at last week’s meeting at Ffos Las has helped him to 28 winners since the turn of the year. His total of 70 so far this season puts him ninth in the National Hunt jockeys’ table, just 11 behind his brother Sean. Christian Williams went close to a winner at Carlisle on Sunday. Powerful Position had won his last three outings and went down by only a neck in a driving finish at the end of a strong three-mile handicap chase. The Williams horsebox will be heading north again this week as he has the ante-post favourite for Saturday’s Coral Scottish National at Ayr. Kitty’s Light hasn’t always had the best of luck in his races, but a four-mile flat-track contest with not too much weight on his back ticks lots of boxes. He’s 6-1 at the moment. At twice the odds is stablemate Win My Wings, who was a heavily-backed winner of last month’s Eider Chase.