Top professional jockey Sam Twiston-Davies is set to return to hunter chasing on Thursday, almost 11 years after he won Cheltenham’s Foxhunter Chase as a teenager.
Twiston-Davies, whose 2010 Festival win on Baby Run announced him as a potential star of the weighing room, has been booked by Cheshire trainer Joe O’Shea to ride Ravished (pictured above under Gina Andrews) in Ludlow’s Behind Bars Open Hunters’ Chase (3.40), which is the first such race of the season.
There is a marked difference however, for amateur riders are currently barred from riding under Rules due to Covid restrictions on non-elite sports, and so, for the time being, professional and conditional jockeys will take the rides in hunters’ chases.
Twenty-five entries have been taken for Thursday’s race which takes place over three miles. The 2019 St James’s Place Foxhunter Chase winner Hazel Hill and his stablemate Wishing And Hoping have been entered by Shropshire trainer Mel Rowley, while Ravished’s stablemate Road To Rome could reappear after an absence of 20 months. O’Shea has also entered Behind Time and booked 5lb claimer Lilly Pinchin for the ride.
Other entries include Shishkin’s half-brother Marcle Ridge, who won at Barbury Racecourse last month for Sam Jukes’s stable, and the Lucy Smith-trained Miss Seagreen, who scored at Larkhill – both horses are owned by their breeder, Clive Bennett.
The James Ridley-trained Chase Me dead-heated at Chaddesley Corbett in early December, while Chameron, last season’s Coronation Cup winner, and Captain Buck’s have been entered by Somerset trainer Sam Loxton.