26 May 2009 Report: Gelligaer Farmers - Lower Machen
by Brian Lee
CANNDAR: en route to winning the Maiden
photo: Alun Sedgmore
Point-to-Pointing in Wales really seems to have taken off this season with big crowds in attendance at most meetings; the Gelligaer Farmers fixture at sun-baked Lower Machen was no exception.
One rider who will have good cause to remember the meeting - when he finally decides to hang up his riding boots - is John Lewis Llewellyn, 38, who rode his 50th winner (35 under Rules and 15 between the flags) on Jason Parfitt's Find It Out in the Members race.
Llewellyn, who is assistant trainer to his father Bargoed National Hunt trainer Bernard, chalked up his first winner under Rules on Rectory Boy at Cheltenham in 1991 and a week later won his first Point-to-Point on Marie Swift at the Banwen Miners meeting.
John, who used to deliver sacks of coal for a living- he was known in the Valleys as 'John The Coal' - rides only occasionally these days; however, he is still a good judge of pace and he managed to hold off the challenge of the long odds-on favourite Mouseen, ridden by Welsh champion Rhys Hughes, to score by half a length.
Tom David, who is having a cracking season, and Justin Bryant's Classic Chance made every post a winning one to land the Confined race, and the blinkered nine-year-old, who has been described as 'a cheeky monkey', clocked the same time - 6mins.8secs - as when winning a Restricted over the same course a fortnight earlier.
The Mixed Open race went to Pembrokeshire Farmer David Evans's Makena, a 25-1 chance. Well ridden by 19-year-old Alan Johns, Makena, a multiple winner in France, won by two and a half lengths from the favourite Red Man after putting in a good jump at the last fence.
Owner/trainer Robert Reddaway was hopping mad after his Fairly Glorious, backed from 7-1 to 2-1 favourite, held on by a length to win the Restricted from Merthyrmawr.
He told me: "It took us three-and-a-half hours to get here from Devon and we came with the intention of having a good bet on our horse, but some b****** beat us to it and we didn't have a penny on.'
One bookmaker took three betsof £500 to £100 about the eight-year-old, and several other satchel men reported a number of £100 bets at 5-1 and 6-1.
Canndar, a seven-year-old bay gelding by Celtic Swing, who is owned by a Cardiff golf club syndicate and trained by Abbi Vaughan in the Vale of Glamorgan, was an easy winner of the young horse Maiden, coming home a distance ahead of Cutlass Silver.
In the aged Maiden, Clarby Express, owned by The Bar Five Racing (3) Partnership and ridden by Josh Harris, won by four lengths from Shalati Princess. Canndar and Clarby Express are both destined to go summer racing.
Welsh Point-to-Pointers did well at the two-day Stratford fixture. Overlut was a 12-1 winner for Rhys Hughes on the Friday evening and Bob Bites Back was beaten just three parts of a length by Dennis The Legend in the pointtopoint.co.uk Champion Novices' Hunter's Chase.
On Saturday two Welsh Point-to-Pointers, Lady Myfanwy and Cannon Bridge, fought out the finish of the Ladies' Hunters' Chase, with the former holding on by three quarters of a length. Prolific Welsh winner Chesnut Annie was made favourite but finished a disappointing fourth.
The Welsh season comes to an end with the Pembrokeshire fixture at Trecoed on June 6.
