Peter Bowen: Little Newcastle, Always Waining and a racing dynasty

Last updated 10 September 2026. Career record verified against published racing sources.

Peter Bowen has trained at Little Newcastle since 1995 and, along the way, produced the family that now runs a decent slice of Welsh jump racing.

The facts

Always Waining and the Topham

The horse most associated with the yard is Always Waining, who won the Topham Chase over the Grand National fences in 2010, 2011 and 2012. No other horse has won it three times.

The Topham is run over 2 miles 5 furlongs of the National course, which means the real fences, and knowing how to get a horse round them repeatedly is a specific skill. Bowen had it.

Snoopy Loopy’s 2008 Betfair Chase is the other one people remember, a 33/1 shot picking up the pieces when Kauto Star stumbled at the last.

The Grand National near miss

McKelvey went closest, finishing second in the 2007 Grand National under Tom O’Brien. The yard has never won it, which for a stable this good over the Aintree fences is one of racing’s small injustices.

The Aintree specialism

Three Tophams with the same horse is not luck. The Grand National fences are unlike anything else a horse meets, and the ones who take to them tend to keep taking to them, which is why Aintree specialists exist as a category at all.

Bowen worked out early that a horse who jumps those fences well is worth campaigning around them, and Always Waining spent his best years doing exactly that. Add McKelvey’s second in the National itself and the yard’s record over the big fences stands comparison with far larger operations.

Little Newcastle

The yard sits just outside the village Bowen was raised in, north of Haverfordwest, and he came to it through point-to-pointing rather than through a big stable. That is the Pembrokeshire route into racing, and it is the same one his sons and Rebecca Curtis took.

It is a long way from Lambourn or Ditcheat. Horses travel for hours to run. The yard has never had the budget of the operations it beats, which is rather the point of it.

The family

The Bowens are the closest thing Welsh jump racing has to a dynasty. Karen Bowen was a champion point-to-point rider. Sean has been champion jump jockey twice. James is the youngest jockey ever to win the Welsh Grand National. Michael, known as Mickey, went into training alongside his father and took over the licence in May 2025 after a season sharing it.

Sean still rides for the yard alongside his retained job, and the stable’s runners at Ffos Las and Chepstow are a fixture of the Welsh season.

Rebecca Curtis, now a Cheltenham Festival and Irish Grand National-winning trainer in her own right, learned part of her trade here before setting up down the road.

Backing the yard

Bowen horses have always been strongest over staying trips and at the smaller tracks, and the yard has a long record of placing horses where they can win rather than where they look grand. Odds on every runner are on the DragonBet horse racing page, with the betting glossary for any term you need.

More Welsh trainers: Rebecca Curtis and Christian Williams. Our jockey profiles cover Sean Bowen, James Bowen and Ben Jones.

Sources: career record and race results per published racing sources. Correct as of 10 September 2026.