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NARCISO: contributed to Jacqui Coward's successful season
photo: Jon Hodd

Hugh Condry appraises the North Western and Yorkshire Areas in the fifth part of his seasonal review.

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Richard Burton retained his place as leading rider in the NORTH WESTERN Area - ahead of his brother-in-law Will Kinsey - though the former three times National Champion (2003, '05 and '06) suffered some frustration, caused by injury and first by the Leicester stewards, who didn't care for the way he rode Oscar d'Angron in a Hunter Chase there in mid-February and stung him with a 12-day ban.

Such a suspension applies only on days when an amateur race is programmed under Rules, so he was grounded for some meetings but not at others and still led the table until after Easter. Then a sprung collarbone incurred at the Ludlow meeting in mid-April meant more missed rides and then yet more again after this injury was aggravated when he hit the deck at Dingley on the first Saturday in May. But he returned to add a couple more wins before finishing the season fourth in the National Championship with 26 winners, plus another five in Hunter Chases.

Burton's career score is now 377. Having overtaken the late David Turner's total during the season, he is only seven behind that of all-time leader Julian Pritchard. His greatest cause for celebration came in May when his wife Hannah gave birth to their daughter Arabella.

Once again Burton was associated with the horses trained by Sheila Crow at Hadnall in Shropshire, riding all the 12 winners she saddled. Most were five- and six-year-olds but a senior amongst them was Unowatimeen, who appeared only twice, finishing second to Vicario in a Bangor Hunter Chase before travelling down to take an Open in February at Horseheath (one of Burton's treble there). Others ridden by Burton for Crow (who may have 2009 Foxhunter winner Cappa Bleu back for 2011) included the local Novice Horse winner, six-year-old Enter Paradise (three wins and three seconds from six runs), who was pipped by only one point for the Area's Leading Horse award by Le Seychellois, trained on the Isle of Anglesey by owner Richard Hewitt. This 10-year-old's performances - including two Mens Open wins at Tabley - also earned the Area Novice rider prize for Joe Proctor, who gained his first win on Gary Hanmer's veteran Tinarana Lord.

Hanmer sent out half a dozen horses to win eight races, others among them the five-year-old Tabley Maiden winner Fairymount and the year-older Ballyeightra Cross. Most were partnered by Nottingham-based Miles Seston, who joined Hanmer at the beginning of the season and rode trebles for him at both the Tabley meetings. With 10 wins Seston achieved his best seasonal tally, which also included two wins from two starts on Tracey Corrigan-Clark's promising five-year-old Natureofthebeast.

Among Burton's non-Crow winners were two Worcestershire-qualified horses owned by William and Angela Rucker, Cedrus Libani and Horsham Lad, who will be mentioned in the West Midlands survey. He also rode Ice Tea, from Donald McCain's Cheshire yard, to win an Open and a Bangor Hunter Chase. Fair Question was another Hunter Chase winner for McCain, scoring at Carlisle under Josh Hamer, who won the four-miler at the Cheltenham evening meeting on Martha's Kinsman for Shropshire trainer Henry Daly.

Sue Sharratt again topped the lady riders in the North West but this time shared the title with Sam Drake, who started the year still a Novice and did well with her small string. Sharratt was also the local leading veteran once more. Best horse in her yard was probably Scotmail Too, twice successful in Ladies Opens at Tabley.

All the Area's 14 meetings were successfully held, though the Tanatside's opening fixture had to be put back a fortnight because of snow at Eyton-on-Severn. This left the Albrighton to kick off local sport, for which they returned to the West Midlands course at Chaddesley Corbett for the first time since 1982. The Meynell & South Staffs had moved out of the Area to Garthorpe in 2009 and the Hunt's second meeting there did much better than the first. In fact only the North Shropshire's Easter Monday meeting at Eyton-on-Severn drew more runners, with 78 to the Meynell's 76. Overall the region managed a runners-per-race average of just over 7.5 for its 104 races.

YORKSHIRE's race average of 9.8 was the highest of any Area. None of its 14 meetings had fewer than 50 runners, several were up in the eighties and top of the list was the Middleton, whose eight races at Whitwell-on-the-Hill in April drew 91 starters. Cherry Coward trained four of the winners here, her brother David Easterby sent out another three and their sister Susan Mason owned Poppy Day, the winner of the Classic 4m1f Mixed Open for the Grimthorpe Gold Cup. The mare, trained by her husband Ian, was ridden by their daughter Jo. Seven-year-old Poppy Day was extending her unbeaten run to five and she failed by only a head to make it six when beaten by Special Portrait on her next and final run in the Heart of All England Hunter Chase at Hexham.

David Easterby finished top trainer nationwide. He sent out 15 horses to win 35 races, all but three ridden by either Jake or Thomas Greenall, while Mrs Coward was close behind, winning 27 races with 13 horses, mostly for Greenall brothers but 10 for her daughter Jacqueline, who finished fourth nationally and took the local Ladies Prize. Easterby also won Hunter Chases with My Old Piano and Pristine Condition, both ridden by Oliver Greenall. Principal scorers for Jacqueline Coward were Cottam Phantom, who landed a hat-trick in lesser races, and Narciso (four wins in a row in Ladies Opens after being placed in his first three starts).

The previous year the Greenall family had made Hunt racing history when Thomas became the first brother to follow brother as the National Champion Rider. Even more amazingly he achieved exactly the same record number of wins, 56, as had Oliver when landing the title the year before. Their father, Lord Daresbury, had been champion three times in the 1980s. Last season Thomas's four-timer at the Holderness meeting on March 14 took him close to the top of the championship table again, but a fall at the water jump (the 13th fence) when riding Heathcliff in the Kim Muir at Cheltenham the following week left him with injuries which were to keep him out of action until the season was nearing its end. So the Greenall Plan B swung into operation, with Jake taking over pursuit of the title.

Jake, who has announced his intention of joining Henry Daly as a conditional later in the year, was soon up into third place and indeed moved to within two of the lead after riding four winners at the Cheshire fixture on April 18. But that was as close as he got. Despite representatives from the powerful Easterby/Coward strings travelling widely to pick up more wins for him after the Yorkshire programme ended in mid-May, he finished up on the season's final day at Umberleigh in Devon with only the faintest of chances of sharing the title - and that hope was extinguished when Richard Woollacott rode the afternoon's first winner to ensure the prize was his on 40 wins, ahead of John Mathias (37) and Jake on 36.

Greenall rode at more meetings outside the Area than inside so, as in the previous year, the local top rider's prize was fought out between two other brothers, Chris and John Dawson. They finished in that order, as they had in 2009, with Chris riding 17 winners (including a four-timer at the Cleveland when Jake Greenall was scoring on four at the Cheshire) to the 16 of John. Their 17-year-old sister Anna also got in on the act with four wins, three in Ladies Opens on the Susan Grant-trained Lutin du Moulin.

Best ride for Chris, 25, was Graham Russ's Oaklands Bobby, who followed an early Restricted win with an Open race double. Two of his winners, Lewesdon Duchess and Chapmans Peak, he trained himself, four came from the stable of Bob Woodhouse, of which six-year-old Quechua des Obeaux won twice and was second twice, and three from trainer Maria Myco. Best of those ridden by John, 20, was the Jedforest-qualified Briscoe Place, winner of four Open races but with John on top just the once he substituted for regular rider Nathan Moscrop, who had been knocked out in a fall at Musselburgh. John also won the £1000 Restricted Championship at the Pendle meeting on Sarah Dent's The Poor Man, a Bedale Maiden winner earlier under Jake Greenall.

Among the Novice riders honours went to Max Johnson and Charlotte Cundall. Johnson, who is attached to the Easterby stable, scored one of his successes in the Bilsdale Confined on Easterby's five-time winner Sea Senor, the Area's Leading Novice Horse who in that race had been spurned by Jake in favour of stablemate King Among Queens, who didn't finish. But King Among Queens came good at Umberleigh on the final day of the season when, this time ridden by Thomas Greenall, he was left to win the Intermediate after brother Oliver and Attrapeur came down at the last fence when still just in front.

Cundall took the female prize after opening her account when riding Major Shark to take the Sinnington's Veteran & Novice Rider race after a stirring duel from the last fence with Smart Thinker, the mount of her father, Chris, whose winning career stretches back over four decades. Both first and second were owned by him and trained by Mary Sowersby, who legged up Charlotte on another of her father's horses, Andre Chenier, to take the Hurworth Ladies Open. This win and five second places earned the nine-year-old enough points to take Yorkshire's Leading Horse trophy. Leading Owner was Tom Bannister, whose colours were carried to win by four from the Easterby string, spearheaded by the Hunter Chase winner My Old Piano.

Other trainers to succeed in Hunter Chases included Maxine Stirk, whose Eliza Doalott followed a hat-trick in Ladies Opens under Freya Brewer by scoring twice over the bigger obstacles for her husband Guy. The mare was an odds-on faller at Kelso in May but the trainer still won the race with her second string Moment of Madness (Mark Walford). John Wade's Always Right (Chris Dawson) comfortably took a four-runner affair at Kelso in March but was not seen again, while Elaine Smith's Areyacoddinmee (Richard Smith) was never able to repeat the performance which took him past four horses on the flat to win at Catterick in March.

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