THREE Welsh trainers, Tim Vaughan, Sam Thomas, and Peter Bowen, are bidding to end more than a century of pain for Welsh horse race trainers at the Grand National, the biggest race in the calendar, held at Aintree, Liverpool.
It has been 118 years since a Welsh-trained horse won the iconic race, and if one of the trio does triumph, the roar will go around Chepstow as well as Aintree.
For the first time, Chepstow Racecourse has shaped an entire day’s racing around the Grand National, taking place 186 miles north in Liverpool. After their seven-race meeting, punters in Chepstow watched on the big screens as three Welsh horses and three Welsh jockeys bid to plant a red dragon in the Aintree turf.
The last Welsh-trained Grand National winner was way back in 1905 with Kirkland, taking the prize under Frank ‘Titch’ Mason, trained by Edward Thomas. The last Welsh jockey to win was Carl Llewellyn on Earth Summit back in 1998.
Tim Vaughan was hoping for long-overdue Welsh success with Eva’s Oskar. The strong Welsh contingent at Aintree this year extends to Eva Oskar’s jockey, Alan Johns, who had a winner last week at Ffos Las on the Peter Bowen-trained mare, Dicey Rielly.
Another Welsh jockey with high hopes of glory was Sean Bowen, who rode last year’s Grand National winner, Noble Yeats. Bowen warmed up with an easy winner at Chepstow’s meeting on Bank Holiday Monday aboard Not Available for trainer Matt Shepherd. Noble Yeats and Bowen finished strongly in the Cheltenham Gold Cup last month, suggesting he could well emulate Tiger Roll with back-to-back Grand National victories, albeit with different jockeys as Sam Waley-Cohen won 12 months ago.
Sam Thomas had the well-fancied Our Power, unbeaten in two starts this season, with the experienced Sam Twiston-Davies in the saddle. If winning a Grand National is about staying power, then no wonder Thomas’ horse is among the favourites at Aintree.
A former Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning jockey, Thomas has come through the most testing of six months since he and Our Power’s owner, Dai Walters, were involved in a helicopter crash back in November. But both men have shown they have the kind of resilience and gritty determination often associated with the world’s most famous horse race, and so Thomas would be a popular winner should Our Power surge past the winning post on Saturday.
Currently priced around the 20/1 mark, Our Power only sneaked into the race at the bottom of the weights, but he has run just twice this season and won on both occasions. The eight-year-old won the London Gold Cup at Ascot and then added another valuable prize in the shape of the Coral Trophy at Kempton.
“I can’t begin to imagine what it would feel like to win,” says Thomas, who could become the first Welsh trainer to win the Grand National since before the First World War.
“I’m well aware of what it takes to get round, and after everything that’s happened this season, it’s just nice to be going there at all. I probably don’t realize the magnitude of it already, but since we’ve known we’ve got a run, we’ve had so much interest.
“It really is such a big thing for the country, and I’m very proud that we can go there and fly the flag for Wales. There are some fantastic Welsh trainers in the area, I’ve grown up watching Evan Williams and Tim Vaughan training lots of good winners and to be in among some of these trainers has been a pinch-yourself moment.”
