Britain’s Jump season moves up a notch when Chepstow’s three-day Dragonbet Welsh Racing Festival gets underway this afternoon.
The meeting features the Welsh Champion Hurdle on Sunday in addition to a number of handicaps, while fans of point-to-pointing in Britain can see two of the sport’s national champions in action on the opening day.
Gina Andrews, who won her 11th Goffs women’s championship last season when riding 29 winners, climbs aboard family favourite Latenightpass in the Dragonbet Veterans’ Handicap Chase (3.12). The 12-year-old, a former high-class point-to-pointer who won the Randox Foxhunters’ Chase in 2022, went on to become a talented cross-country chaser who also ran a cracking race when leading at the final fence in the 2024 Grand National, only for his stamina to dry up on the long run-in.
Multiple women's point-to-point champion Gina Andrews is in action at Chepstow this afternoon (Ce)
Latenightpass is trained by Andrews’ husband Tom Ellis and owned and was bred by his mother, Pippa Ellis.
Rian Corcoran, who romped away with last season’s Highflyer Bloodstock novice men’s title race, when riding 23 winners, has since become a conditional jockey based with David Pipe. Today he takes his first ride for Pipe since shedding his amateur status, although he rode four winners for the stable on the point-to-point circuit last season, including a double at Chipley Park in February. That continued Pipe’s policy of running a couple of pointers under his own name each season in order to give junior members of staff rides in races.
Rian Corcoran, the current novice men's point-to-point champion is also riding at the Welsh course (Ce)
Corcoran, whose father Liam rode as a jump jockey and later trained under rules before moving on to handling pointers, partners Old Bridge for Pipe in Chepstow’s aptly-named David Pipe Racing Handicap Hurdle (4.55).