All to play for in both Men’s and Lady’s Welsh Championships at Trecoed.

The Welsh point to point season draws to a close with Pembrokeshire Hunt hosting the meeting at Trecoed on Saturday.  

It would be a few years since both the Gentlemen’s and Lady’s Welsh Championships have been too close to call going into the final meeting.  The Welsh bookies are currently taking bets on the outcome and bookmaker James Lovell says “we will be taking bets both this week and during the meeting, at the present time Bradley Gibbs (116 pts) is available at 4/6, Byron Moorcroft (112 pts) at even money.  The Ladies are currently Isobel Williams (54 pts) at 1/5 and Jodie Hughes (45 pts) at 3/1 however these are likely to fluctuate in the run up to Saturday.” 

This level of interest demonstrates how seriously the point to point community in Wales views the Welsh Championships and Pembrokeshire will be expecting a good crowd to watch the final stages played out this weekend starting at 2pm with the Members race.

The first race has a healthy entry for a Hunt race with 9 entries; it is quite difficult to look past whichever horse Bradley Gibbs chooses to ride; Thegirlfrommilan trained by his father or Moral Hazard who will get his favoured ground for the first time this year.  The Mickey Bowen trained Hospital has run consistently well all season and will be expected to be another serious contender.

The Restricted provides plenty of options for the Championship contenders but Nicky Williams trains Kilcrea Bridge, is entered to partner the horse himself and is quite likely to deny them all the 6 points they are looking for.  The David Rees trained Buck Bravo could well consolidate his maiden win on this track last time out.

The Men’s open offers Bradley Gibbs five options all with equally good chances, but the jockeys can only ride one each and Byron Moorcroft will very likely be sitting on the favourite in Spencermoon, the prolific end of season winner who shows a remarkable improvement in form each year once the ground dries out. Sir du Bearn is also entered this week, he has only run once this season, if he makes the six and a half mile trip to Trecoed for Saturday the other runners will have to produce a best ever performance to take home the Bisley H Munt – Jewellers Men’s Open trophy.

The Ladies is the race most likely to put the Ladies Championship to bed, however Tiger Rag and Anna Lewis denied both girls victory a week ago on the same course and it would be no surprise if she does the same this week.

The 5th race is a maiden and Awsomedestination must be about to win one but equally Persistantprincess, runner up last time could just get home first. The rest are evenly matched but the most promising is Sweet Lady Jane and Byron Moorcroft will be pulling out all the stops to get her to the line ahead of the rest.

The final official race is the Intermediate which looks a good contest with several likely winners to choose from including Chasing Casey, January Don, Luke’s Hill, Nuevo Molino, Way Wild West and Yeats Ace and is likely to be an exciting finale to the 2018 Welsh season.

The last race is followed by a hunt scurry open to hunt members on non-thoroughbred horses and is always well supported by a crowd of well-wishers. Pony racing will conclude the day giving the crowd a hint of what is to come from our point to point jockeys of the future.

After racing there will be live music provided by the popular local duo “Two is enough” and Welsh racegoers will not be rushing home but celebrating the close of what started as a really difficult season as a result of the wet spring, but has drawn to an exciting conclusion with a great atmosphere and lots of good racing.