Ex-champ celebrates his 1,000th triumph as a trainer
LLANCARFAN farmer turned National Hunt trainer Evan Williams chalked up his 1,000th winner when his Annsam, partnered by stable jockey Adam Wedge, won at Catterick recently.
Evan, a former national point-topoint champion rider who was granted a Jockey Club trainer’s licence on May 1, 2003, had been used to saddling winners as when he hung up his riding boots he became a successful trainer of point-topointers.
In my column in the August of 2003, I wrote: “There’s not many trainers who can claim to have saddled a winner over hurdles, jumps and on the flat in their first few months.”
And I told back then how Evan had caught the attention of the national racing press, which was unaware of his hunt-racing background and thinking that he was some new whizz-kid from the Valleys!
But Evan was born into the world of steeplechasing – both his late father Rees and mother Mary, now Mary Evans, were both successful point-to-point riders and I had the honour of reporting on their successes for this paper all those years ago. Now I am delighted to be reporting on the success of Evan and his wife Catherine’s daughter Isabel!
I well remember Evan’s first big success under Rules. It was when his Sunray, a 40-1 chance, won the £19,140 Elina Finale Juvenile at rainsoaked Chepstow. That day, Catherine was standing in for Evan, as he had travelled to Leicester with another horse.
She told me in the winner’s enclosure back then: “It’s brilliant to win a valuable race like this on our local course.’’
And now, all these years later, Evan is the leading National Hunt trainer at Wales’ premier racecourse.
As a rider, Evan has set a record there that probably will never be beaten as he won the Dunraven Bowl Hunter Chase three times. In 1996 he won on Miss Millbrook and in 2003 and 2004 he scored on Cherry Gold, who was also successful in 2005 with Jason Cook in the saddle.
■ Evan Williams’ one-time assistant trainer, Ogmore-by-Sea’s Christian Williams (no relation), saddled his first-ever hat-trick at Fakenham recently with StrictlyADancer, a sixlengths winner of the opening selling handicap hurdle, Massini’s Dream, who took the conditional jockeys handicap hurdle, and Cap Du Nord, which won the handicap chase.
Adam Wedge won on the first named and Christian’s stable jockey and rising star Jack Tudor won on the other two.
Jack was also in good form at Warwick last week when he won on Mark Bradstock’s top-weighted Jaisalmer.
■ The funeral service and cremation of Dillwyn Thomas, of The Stud Farm, near Bridgend, who died on January 5, 2020 will take place on Thursday, February 6 at Coychurch Crematorium at 1.15 pm.
Brian’s Blast from the Past
Under the heading “Schoolgirl Pip steals honours”, this is what I had to say in the Western Mail back in the March of 1986:
“Welsh champion rider John Llewellyn landed a treble at the Llangibby Hunt point-to-point steeplechases with Taf (members), Fixed Price (adjacent) and Rathachhu (men’s open), bringing his season’s tally of wins to nine.
“But it was the riding of 16-yearold Caerphilly schoolgirl Pip Jones, who landed the ladies’ open race on John Parfitt’s Eggington, that excited most racegoers. Having her first ride in a point-to-point, petite Pip showed good judgment of pace to win by a length-and-a-half after being a length or so behind going over the last fence.
“Earlier in the day Pip, who has represented Wales at showjumping, had been competing in the Wales and West Show. Fixed Price and Rock Candy, who were first and second in the Audi Adjacent Hunts’ race, both earned a ticket for the Audi Grand Prix de Chasse Final to be held at Sandown Park on April 25.’’
And for the record, David Stephens took the restricted open on the 2-1 favourite Young Gipsy and also won the maiden race on the 5-2 favourite Dutch Choice.
As for Pip Jones, she went on to become Wales’ most famous female hunt-racing rider and in 1998 became the first Welsh woman to win the national ladies point-topoint championship. She went on to ride a further 200 winners between the flags and also a number of winners under Rules too.
Pip now resides in Australia and her mother Pat told me she sometimes sends a copy of Turf Talk to her, so I am hoping that Pip will agree to be one of my Turf Talk Questionnaire guests in the future...
■ Please send your racing news and views to Brian Lee by emailing brianlee4@virginmedia.com or telephoning 029 2073 6438.