Vale of Glamorgan trainers Evan Williams and Tim Vaughan both saddled winners at Chepstow (writes Brian Lee).
Williams’s four-year-old Secret Reprieve was a 50-1 winner of the Native River Supports The IJF Novices’ Hurdle and Vaughan’s five-year-old Trixter won the Smart Money’s On Coral Conditional Jockeys Novices Hurdle.
The former, ridden by stable jockey Adam Wedge, scored by one and a quarter lengths from the favourite Smiths Cross and those who backed the lightly raced horse – which had finished fifth of six in a bumper (Flat race) last month – on the tote were rewarded with odds of nearly 92-1!
Vale of Glamorgan trainers Evan Williams and Tim Vaughan both saddled winners at Chepstow.
Williams had also saddled last year’s winner of the corresponding race with the odds-on Choose Your Weapon and Wedge was in the saddle on that occasion, too.
Tim Vaughan’s five-year-old Trixster under Charlie Price just got home by a head from the Nigel Twiston-Davies trained Ballyart
and went off the 5-2 favourite in a field of nine runners.
In the Llewellyn Humphries Handicap Hurdle, West Wales’s Lorcan Williams, riding the Paul Nicholls trained Truckers Lodge, came home 10 lengths ahead of Braventara to the delight of those who had backed the 9-4 favourite.
At Aintree, Pembrokeshire’s Sean Bowen, riding Paul Nicholls’ top weighted Warriors Tale, won the Betway Grand Sefton Handicap Chase which is held over two miles and five furlongs of the Grand National course.
Bridgend’s Connor Brace put his pony racing experience to good use when winning the closing Mansionbet Standard Open National Hunt Flat Race at Sedgefield for his guvnor Fergal O’Brien on the five-year-old Champagne Well, which had three parts of a length to spare over Big Bad Bear.
Champagne Well was the only five-year-old in the race – the five others were all four-year-olds – was a 6-4 chance.
Earlier Evan Williams had taken the Indian Marquee On Boxing Day Offer Mares’ Novices’ Handicap Chase with the even money favourite Inch Lala who under Adam Wedge won by 11 lengths from the bottom weighted GoGo Baloo.