Winners for four of Wiltshire's finest
Wiltshire's trainers clearly read my column yesterday as four separate handlers announced the well-being of their strings at mid-week fixtures at Hereford and Huntingdon.
Emma Lavelle has started October productively already, but scored on the double with Tedwin Hills in the 2m7f handicap chase and Gold Link in the novice handicap. The former has been slow to find winning form but in this, his tenth start, reversed form with the second, Great D'Ange, with a 5lb advantage in the weights.
Gold Link, successful in July at Stratford, has been in the frame in races at Bangor, Stratford and Warwick since, and stuck resolutely to his task to wear down Enememynemo - a commentator's nightmare if ever there was one - on the line to win by a neck. Both were ridden by Tom Bellamy.
Not to be outfaced, Alan King also struck with Kay Tara Tara in the mares' hurdle on both her seasonal and hurdle debut. King will be relishing the rain due to hit Ascot, where Trueshan is primed to run in the Group I Long Distance Cup. The more cut in the ground the better to run the speed off some of the competition. King was also successful with Maiden Pointing winner On Se Calme, in a National Hunt maiden at Hereford.
At the other end of the country, and the opposite end of the county, Milton Harris continued his fine run of form that keeps him in second place in the early rankings of the Trainers' Championship. That the opening race of Hereford's winter season started with a match in the first race will not have bothered him at all, and it bothered winner Parade Away even less. Making all, he drew clear 2 out and finished 16l ahead of his rival, never giving punters who'd backed the 1/16 favourite a moment's worry.
Seamus Mullins struggles to find the same level of owner that patronises the aforementioned three handlers, but he enjoyed his first winner of October when Kentford Mallard ran out a 2 1/4l winner of the 3m handicap hurdle for nonogenarian owner Ian Bare.
All in all, not too many names missing from the Wiltshire league of training excellence.
