Historical Clues: Welsh Grand National

It’s tough to find the right horse to cope with the extreme test that the Welsh Grand National provides, but one yard in particular seem to have excelled in this area more than others in recent years. Le Beau Bai’s success in 2011 was the first of three wins in the race for the Lee yard, located only a couple of miles from the Welsh border in Herefordshire. Richard Lee was at the helm for the first two of those wins, fulfilling an ambition to train the winner of Wales’s biggest race. Here’s an extract from Le Beau Bai’s essay from Chasers & Hurdlers 2011/12…

“`I've always loved Chepstow and we've had a bit of success here, it's a slow track and we've had a few slow horses!' Mud-loving Le Beau Bai certainly requires a stiff test of stamina, his trainer's main concern in the lead up to the race being whether the going would be soft enough. He need not have worried, conditions turning as gruelling as they usually are for Chepstow's Christmas meeting. Le Beau Bai had run in the Coral Welsh National before, starting favourite when finishing third as a six-year-old to Dream Alliance (who is owned by a Welsh syndicate). Le Beau Bai didn't contest the race the following season when his stable missed the deadline for entering him in the rescheduled running in January after Chepstow's Christmas meeting was lost to the weather. Everything fell right in the latest edition in which a 4-lb penalty for winning over the course earlier in the month ensured that he edged high enough up the handicap to secure a run in a field of twenty.”

The Lee yard ran 50/1 chance Incentivise in the 2012 renewal and despite racing from 8 lb out of the handicap he finished a creditable sixth. Mountainous – one of two Lee runners in the 2013 renewal – was also out of the handicap (by 5 lb), though as an unexposed second season chaser whose stamina had yet to be drawn out, he carried a very different profile into the race than Incentivise, and the trip – six furlongs longer than he’d ever tackled before – as well as the heavy ground sparked a significant upturn in his form:

“Mountainous disputed the lead with Hawkes Point from three out and had to be driven right out after finally edging ahead on the run-in. Hawkes Point found plenty, though, and would have got back up in another few strides, Mountainous just holding on by a head, with the still closing Tidal Bay half a length further away. The first three pulled seven lengths clear of 50/1-shot One In A Milan, with Merry King and Vintage Star fifth and sixth of the nine finishers.”

Conditions were typically testing for Mountainous’ first Welsh National but they were probably even worse for his second – two years later, providing a high-profile winner for Kerry Lee, who took over from her father in July 2015 – which was a brutal test that took nearly half a minute longer to complete.

The yard have a couple of entries in this year’s renewal in hope of landing a fourth win in the last seven runnings of the race, the best of the pair being Bishops Road.

What a ride from @Sean_Bowen_ who overcomes a slipping saddle and galvanises Beware The Bear to land the At The Races Rehearsal Chase at @NewcastleRaces: pic.twitter.com/xKimgVfXtM

— At The Races (@AtTheRaces) December 2, 2017

He’s got a previous win on heavy ground to his name – as both Le Beau Bai and Mountainous did – and is on a mark now 10 lb lower than when he was tenth in the 2016 renewal behind Native River. He arrives at Chepstow on the back of a good second in the Rehearsal Chase at Newcastle and looks set to go well in Saturday’s re-arranged marathon.

Click here to read Nic Doggett's preview of the Welsh National