Honours evenly shared as professionals look ahead to Festival week
Dragonbet stepped up to sponsor our opening card on the eve of the Cheltenham Festival, and halfway through the week, will have good reason to feel smug with some long-priced winners at Prestbury Park.
There were long faces at Stratford too, albeit a sense also of celebration at another season's racing ahead. A particularly long face for rider Jack Andrews, who by-passed the water jump on the first circuit of the DragonBet The Roar Before BOG @ Cheltenham Handicap Chase, mistakenly omitting the fence before one omitted for safety reasons. A 12 day suspension left him smarting his error and hurting in the pocket too.
Smiles though for James Bowen, making a good start to a memorable week that has so far rendered two Festival winners, as Harel du Marais made good on some placed efforts to hit the sweet spot in this opening chase of the new season for Charles and Adam Pogson.
The season had begun 30 minutes earlier with a 16th winner for Naunton-based Max Comley in the 6 runner Dragon Bet Extra Places juvenile hurdle, with Claoks of Gold, ridden by David Bass.
Bred by Sheikh Mohammed Albaid Al Maktoum for a glittering career on the flat, initial plans clearly didn't work out. The ambitious Comley, who trains from the opposite end of the village to the Twiston-Davies family, is making a good impression in his ascent from the Point-to-Point field.
Favourite backers got off the mark for the day in the third, as Team Skelton continued their romp through the 2025-26 season, this time with Let It Rain, a 2 1/2l winner of the 2m handicap hurdle. Picking off the leaders two out, Skelton Jnr was able to join the leader at the last and go on for winner 158 of the season.
Nigel & Willy Twiston-Davies rarely leave Stratford empty-handed, and this day was not to be the exception, Harbour Light gaining a first career victory over hurdles at the fifith time of asking in the novices handicap hurdle. Like so many partnerships, this too was a family affair, Sam in the plate for an 79th season tally.
Sam made it 80 an hour later in the Junior bumper, Frenati just getting the better of a rousing finish to get his nose in front of Red Metal on the line for Anthony Honeyball, Equi Libre a neck back in third. Such hard races are not an ideal introduction for young horses, but provided they all have a taste for the game, all three should be worth following.
Yet another resident of Naunton showed his string remains in great form as they await The Jukebox Man on Friday. Ben Pauling and Ben Jones teamed up again for a clinical 17l success with As Legends Have It in the 0-110 handicap chase, another favourite chalked up, at 5/4, in a slowly-run race.
Stratford is a keen advocate of hunter chases in a diminishing number of courses to do so. The concluding novices hunters' event went to the Darren Andrews - ridden Corporal Jackjones, already successful numerous times between the flags, and runner-up a fortnight ago at Leicester for Poppy Skinner.
