Home joy for Evan as Reprieve’s victory definitely no Secret
Secret Reprieve provided proud Welshman Evan Williams with victory in yesterday’s Coral Welsh Grand National at Chepstow.
An impressive winner of the Welsh Grand National Trial at the Monmouthshire circuit in early December, the Flemensfirth gelding had been strongly fancied for the big race itself ever since.
And while the threemile-five-furlong contest had to be abandoned due to a waterlogged track over the Christmas period, he was still allowed to line up under a 4lb penalty, meaning he was 8lb well-in at the weights.
With just 10st 1lb on his back, Secret Reprieve was all the rage as the 5-2 favourite, and his supporters will have had few concerns throughout the stamina-sapping feature, with the lightly-raced sevenyear-old always travelling strongly and jumped accurately.
Despite having suffered two heavy falls earlier in the day, Adam Wedge cut a confident figure in the saddle rounding the home turn – and while The Two Amigos refused to go down
without a fight and made a race of it, the market leader proved three lengths too strong.
Just as he was in 2019, top-weight Yala Enki was third.
Victory was going to a Welsh-trained runner for the second season in succession, with Potters Corner, trained by Christian Williams, becoming the first Welsh winner since Norther in 1965 when triumphing last term.
Evan Williams said: “It’s more relief than anything else, which is a terrible thing to say. It means an awful lot to us.
“The horse is a joy to deal with. You can never be confident when you’re going over this sort of trip, but in the pit of my stomach I thought it would bring out further improvement and it looked to me like he galloped right through the line.”