South off to flying start

SEAN Levey took the riding plaudits on the opening night of the second edition of the Racing League, as he partnered a treble at Doncaster for Matt Chapman’s table- topping London and The South team who bagged four winners overall.

TV presenter Chapman had been vocal before the competition got under way and luckily for him his team backed him up, standing tall on 174 points.

With Richard Hannon and Andrew Balding providing the bulk of his runners on Town Moor, and with the likes of Charlie Hills and Mick Channon to call on in later weeks, Chapman’s team were always going to be ones to watch.

But four winners on the first night perhaps surpassed even their expectations.

The new regional format has proved popular and while the scoring system might still require a calculator, there is no doubt this year’s edition is a big improvement.

Chapman certainly thinks so after the victories of System in the opener and Zabbie in race three, both trained by Hannon, while the Balding- trained Scampi ( 9- 1) won over 12 furlongs and Nicola Currie sealed the night when bolting up in the last aboard Dean Ivory’s Pledge Of Honour ( 11- 2).

“It just shows the problems with the other captains! They are not listening to the big players in the game. I did and I got the result. It’s a team game and I’m playing the team game,” said Chapman.

“I can’t thank Richard enough for running those two horses. With System he was insistent he ran while he was always running Zabbie.

“I’ve got to be honest, Hannon had a whole load of entries for that race and I was really hoping he didn’t choose Zabbie as I thought he had a host of better contenders. But just like with System, there’s a reason he’s a top- class trainer and I’m a mug. I can’t thank him enough.”