Dylan, 18, jumping for joy as horse gives him his first win
CONGRATULATIONS go to Dylan Kitts, 18, who rode his first winner at the recent North Cornwall Point-To-Point Steeplechases at Wadebridge.
Riding the 11-year-old bay gelding Ardview Boy for owner/trainer Wyn Morris, Dylan made all the running in the Point-To-Point Owners Racing Club Novice Riders race to win by four lengths from Master Dick.
A winner of his three previous races last season when trained by Amber Mathias, Ardview Boy, a 5-1 shot in a field of just five runners, jumped for fun, according to his young rider.
Dylan told the press: “His jumping was awesome.’’
Trainer Wyn Morris, of Narbeth, Pembrokeshire, one of my Western Mail Turf Talk Questionnaire guests last year, said: “We came overnight and lodged the horse with Ryan Chapman a few miles from Wadebridge.’’
A winner at the Pembrokeshire, Gelligaer and Banwen point-topoints last season when ridden by Carmarthen’s Ben Jones, who this season has been making a name for himself riding under National Hunt
Rules, the next stop for Ardview Boy could be a hunter chase at Hereford.
Meanwhile, “have horses, will travel” is also the motto of Pembrokeshire’s Rebecca Curtis. Last Tuesday, she sent her seven-year-old Financial Outcome on the 245-mile trip to Doncaster.
Ridden by Aidan Coleman, Financial Outcome landed the Novices’ Handicap Chase over three miles and two furlongs. The bottomweighted Financial Outcome, a 9-4 chance, won by 28 lengths from the top-weighted Ballymagroarty Boy to claim the first prize of £4,289.
Earlier in the day there was more success for Wales when Brecon’s Charlie Price, who rides out for Tim Vaughan’s Vale of Glamorgan yard, won the Conditionals Handicap Hurdle on Sam Allwood’s JobsOnFire, which came home 10 lengths ahead of the favourite Evenstephens.
Charlie, who is a leading Arabian horse racing jockey, deserves more rides than he usually gets.
One Welsh trainer who was delighted that Newbury races survived an 8am inspection last Wednesday (January 15) was Bridgend’s John Flint, whose nine-yearold Eddie Maurice, the oldest horse in division two of the EBM Handicap Hurdle, won by a head in a photofinish.
Eddie Maurice, who went off the 3-1 favourite, was ridden by Jack Tudor, 17, who recently won the Welsh Grand National on the Christian Williams-trained Potters Corner.
Brian’s Blast from the Past
Under the heading “Sparkling win for Pip” in March of 1993, this is what I reported in the Western Mail:
“When Pip Nash, of Rudry, was presented with a magnum of bubbly for winning the Taittinger Champagne Ladies’ Open race at the Brecon Hunt point-to-point steeplechases, she had good cause for celebration.
“Twelve months ago she was on a life-support machine after a horrific fall at Nottingham which almost killed her and her pillar-to-post victory on Spartan City was her first win since that terrible day.
“When asked how it felt to ride a winner again, she replied: ‘Brilliant – it’s been a long time.’
“Pip’s brother, Tim Jones, made it a double celebration when landing a gamble in the Men’s Open race on Carrickmines, who won by eight lengths.
“Hereford’s Willie Bryan rode a double for retired bank manager Jim Todd with Northern Barry in the Confined race and Oakers Hill in Division Three of the Maiden. Newport company secretary Joanne Hawkins, 23, made all the running on her seven-year-old Construction King to win the First Division of the Maiden and Llanwern steelworker Joe Price scored a shock win in Division Three of the Restricted on 14-1 outsider Taureen Tycoon.’’