How many big gambles will come off during this season?
Wales’ Nick Williams and Lorcan Williams – no relation – both rode winners at the recent South Dorset Point-ToPoint.
Nick – riding Kilcrea Bridge, a horse his brother Christian had bought in Ireland – held off the late challenge of Where’s Wilba to land a big gamble in the men’s open race; and Lorcan on Swincombe Toby, in the closest finish of the day, beat Troed Y Melin by a head in the maiden race.
Meanwhile, the south and west Wales Point-To-Point season gets under way with the first of the two Curre and Llangibby fixtures at Howick, near Chepstow, on Sunday. The first race is at 12 noon.
The principal race will be the Roger Lewis Memorial Mixed Open Race and the first two past the post will qualify for the Skinner’s Ladies Open Final at Stratford on June 8. The winning horse will also earn a ticket for the Timico Mixed Open Final at Cheltenham on May 4.
The season will come to an end with the Pembrokeshire Hunt at Trecoed on June 2 and I wonder how many successful big gambles will come off during the season?
In my book Racing Rogues – The Scams, Scandals and Gambles of Horse Racing in Wales, I tell of a number of big gambles concerning Welsh owners, trainers and riders, and none more so than the one in 2009 when a six-year-old gelding, owned by Cardiff bookmaker David Lovell and trained in the Vale of Glamorgan by Abbi Vaughan, landed one of the biggest betting coups in years at the Flint and Denbigh meeting.
Backed from 10-1 to 4-6 and off the board, Dead Or Alive, ridden by Dean Coleman, won unchallenged by a distance.
Wives and girlfriends of the winning connections also backed the horse with the bookies.
Another memorable gambling coup was landed at the Axe Vale Harriers fixture when Katesville, owned and trained by Lee Bowles, ran out an eight-lengths winner of the men’s open race under Rudry’s Tim Jones, leaving his 13 rivals trailing in his wake.
Some £10,000 to £12,000 was taken out of the bookies’ satchels and it was reported that the horse had “landed a punt of astronomical proportions”.
Nearer to home and what was described as a “monster gamble” took place at the Ystrad Taf Fechan fixture at Ystradowen in the Vale of Glamorgan in 2002, when Nearly Noble, owned and trained by Pontypridd’s Robert Rowsell and ridden by his then wife Lucy, bolted home a four-lengths winner of a division of the open maiden race.
Backed from 16-1 to 4-1 and off the board in places, Nearly Noble had been bought from Jim Draper, son of the legendary Arkle trainer Tom Dreaper, just a matter of weeks before, and although Nearly Noble’s racecard form figures read 047-0, he had been a virtual winner, for he had actually finished first in an Irish point-to-point a couple of seasons earlier but was disqualified after being misdirected by a fence steward.
In 2008 Lucy landed another big gamble when she won on David Brace’s five-year-old grey gelding Margam Abbey who, at the Black Forest Lodge meeting, galloped home a 20-lengths winner of a division of the open maiden race after being backed from 10-1 to 5-2.
It was the last race of a nine-race card and for those who backed the Margam Abbey it was well worth the wait.
Yet another big gamble I recall was in 1976 at the Glamorgan Point-ToPoint at St Hilary, when Gwyn Williams’ Hesperus, ridden by John Beavis, came home an unchallenged winner of the maiden race after being backed from 16-1 to 2-1.
It was later discovered that Hesperus should not have even been in the race, as it had broken Jockey Club rules by being sharpened up in three hurdle races during the point-topointers’ close season. Hesperus was disqualified and the race awarded to the runner-up Little Wyke.
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