A new summer Jumps Championship worth £30,000 launches at Cartmel next weekend, concluding on September 19 at Newton Abbot, which will reward owners, riders, trainers, and smaller handlers through the summer months, a period when the lesser lights of the sport often win more prominence around our summer courses.
Each category will reward its winner with £7,500, based on a points system for race winners, and placed horses in fields over 5 to encourage stronger fields. And stronger fields are certainly needed this month as the unseasonably dry Spring takes its toll on field sizes, where, despite well watered ground, trainers have been sitting on their hands awaiting a little more cut in the ground.
In warm sunshine, 37 faced the starter in our latest fixture for what proved a miserable day for layers with four short-priced jollies winning, and with healthy margins too, the six races producing an aggregate winning distance of 50l.
The best finish of the day came about in the William Hill More Top Prices Mares Handicap Hurdle, where top weight Summerleaze was expected to make it a four-timer for the successful Bowen yard under new champion Sean. The field was well bunched down the back straight, led by Bright Sunbird, but turning in, it was Summerleaze who set sail for home from All Under Control. Joe Anderson found his way to the inside rail and fairly scooted past both in the final 100 yards on Portobello Girl however, to double Alistair Ralph’s season tally in this opening month, and win by 3/4l.
Bowen was in the runner-up berth in the second of the two mares races later in the afternoon, a mares handicap chase over 2m 3f. Toby Wynne got a great tune out of 2/1 favourite Irish Lullaby, who showed her rivals a clean pair of heels from some way out to win on debut. Bowen on Fancy Stuff for Tom Gretton, went second two out, but could make little impression on the leader, and the winning distance of 4 3/4l allowed some margin. Another winner from the Oliver Greenall/Josh Guerriero partnership.
Bowen rarely goes away empty-handed from meetings of this calibre, and his afternoon had begun in the best possible fashion with a pillar to post victory for brother Mickey in the opening 2m 6f Novices hurdle on All Inn Hand. Not the most competitive race with five runners, Bowen sent the 2/5 favourite into an early lead, kicked on at the halfway point, and asserted fully from two out, coasting home by 22l. The stable is likely to be a player in the new Summer Jumps Championships, with a portfolio of faster ground horses.
It was the turn of younger brother James in the novices handicap chase to maintain the Bowen name among the winners, this time for Warren Greatrex. The Lambourn handler is not best known for his summer runners, but Bowen has an excellent winning strike rate for him at 16%. In fact, the partnership would likely show a profit for each way betting too. A five year trend has 63& of Gretrex-trained, Bowen – ridden horses finishing in the frame. The six year old Tactical Affair continued the Bowen love-in with this meeting with a flagfall to judge run in front to justify his 6/4 favouritism. Rory’s Story was a respectful 10l second.
For all that he has no marquee chaser or hurdler to brighten Saturdays, Alan King is a barometer of consistency, year on year, clocking in £3/4m in prize money for his owners in each of the Jumps and Flat calendars. This total is made up largely by bread and butter horses like Baskerville, who broke a sequence of nearly races by switching to the larger obstacles in the 2m6f handicap chase for a 12l victory under Tom Cannon over Nickelforce. He may need to brush up his jumping, but looks likely to figure again at this level.
Ten lined up for the concluding bumper, where a Gina Andrews graduate of Point-to-Point bumpers made a successful transition to Rules racing for Sheila Lewis. Lord Cauvelliere and second placed Eddie My Eagle met at Bitterley in early April, and repeated the placings here under Callum Pritchard to give the Welsh wizard something to dream about over the summer.
