Welsh champion point-to-point rider Bradley Gibbs, 24, was in cracking form at the well attended Monmouthshire Hunt Point-To-Point Steeplechases at Monmouth Showground. 

He rode a four-timer and took his wins total for the season to 17.

Bradley took the opening Connolly’s Red Mills Intermediate race on the nine-year-old Captain McGinley, leading two fences from home to score by three lengths from the favourite Haven’t Time partnered by Tommie O’Brien.

Captain McGinley is owned by Adrian Simpson, John Griffiths and Beverley Thomas, the West Wales Area hunt-racing secretary who also trains the horse.

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Win number two came around an hour later in the men’s open when he worked wonders on Yeats Ace, the only mare in the eight-runner field.

Yeats Ace got home by a length from the pacemaking and bold jumping Big Man Doe after making

several untidy mistakes.

Victory number three came in the Restricted when Bradley made all on 12-1 chance Tick Tock Ten, owned by John Chinn and trained by Pip Hooley.

The win came when Tick Tock Ten held on to score by half-a-length from Buffalo Sabre, who was finishing second for the third time on the trot this season.

 

The Seven-Year-Olds And Over Open Maiden race was divided on the day and in the first division Bradley rode Claire Sherriff’s eight-year-old Rio Bravo, who runner-up to Corbett Court over the course during.

Bravo went one better this time, making nearly all the running to win by 15 lengths from Keep It Simple. Backed from 2-1 to 4-6, Rio Bravo is trained by Bradley’s father David Gibbs at Ynysbwl.

The second division of this race was won by French-bred seven-year-old Cheltenam De Vaige, who was under Will Biddick and scored by 20 lengths from Long Mile Road in a time some seven seconds slower than Rio Bravo had taken to win the first division.

Cheltenham de Vaige’s trainer Sally Randell, a former National Hunt  amateur rider, was delighted with her charge’s success and, asked what he thought of the course, Biddick said: “After that win I can’t fault it.”

There were 12 runners in the Four, Five And Six-Year-Olds Open Maiden over two-and-a-half miles and Vale of Glamorgan’s Isabel Williams, won on GetAway Flyer, owned by Roger Willcox  and Bill Corrigan.

GetAway Flyer took up the running six fences from home to win by two-and-a-half lengths with

grey four-year-old GetARound, making his racecourse debut, second.

“She jumped for fun.” said Isabel, 21, and Bridgend builder Willcox admitted to  having ‘a nice bet’ on the six-year-old mare, who was beaten in a close finish at Llanfrynach a week earlier.

In the Ladies’ Open Race, Hannah Lewis, riding Will Gaskins’ TB Broke Her, the only mare in the race, led two fences out and went on to win by 20 lengths from the Willcox owned and trained Patrick Tom Boru, partnered by Jodie Hughes.

Starting Prices: 

Intermediate: Captain McGinley (Bradley Gibbs) 7-2.

Young Horse Maiden:Getaway Flyer (Isabel Wiliams) 7-2. 

Men’s Open: Yeats Ace (Bradley Gibbs ) 2-1 fav.

Ladies Open: T B Broke Her (Hannah Lewis) 9-2.

Restricted: Tick Tock Ten (Bradley Gibbs) 12-1. 

Aged Maiden, Division One: Rio Bravo (Bradley Gibbs) 4-6 fav. 

Aged Maiden, Division Two: Cheltenam De Vaige (Will Biddick) 4-1.

There were wins for Wales-based trainers Peter Bowen, Kerry Lee and John Flint over the weekend.

Bowen’s Viens Chercher, ridden by his son Sean, was a 14-lengths winner of the handicap chase at odds of 4-1 at Stratford.

In the following handicap hurdle, Lee saw her The Welsh Paddies, a 2-1 favourite partnered by Richard Patrick, win by 10 ten lengths from Dai Rees’ Gardiners Hill.

At Ascot, Bridgend’s Flint’s Eddie Maurice was a winner, ridden by Jamie Moore. They got home by a head from Caid Du Lin, ridden by Sam Twiston-Davies, to claim the £25,000-plus prize awarded to the winner of the novices’ handicap chase.

There were only four runners and  the bottom weighted Eddie Maurice went off at odds of 6-1.