There’s no pill like a winning pill – From The Dragon’s Mouth: Edition 16

As the old saying goes, “There’s no pill like a winning pill” and last week we had a double dose.

The on-course operation was back at Ffos Las on Saturday for the Rum ‘n’ Reggae night followed by a trip even further west to Trecoed point-to-point located near Fishguard on Sunday.

Ffos saw one record broken and another equalled. Trecoed saw champions crowned and the Welsh point-to-point season concluded.

The record breaking came courtesy of Sean Bowen, who is now the winning-most rider at Ffos.

His victories on Gavin and Whatawit allowed him to surpass Tony McCoy’s 69 winning rides at the venue.

With 70 on the board, and age on his side, goodness knows what number he’ll get to before retirement beckons – selfishly, I’m hoping it’s not too many because any Sean-ridden winner is usually very expensive when you have a pitch in the betting ring.

He’s not the only Bowen in town, though, and a better way to profit is by backing his brother, James, whenever he dons his breaches in Carmarthenshire.

Although currently injured, he’s showing a £20 profit to a £1 bet on all his rides over the past five seasons. 

The record equalled was on the betting front. The aforementioned ‘Whatawit’ became the joint shortest priced winner in Britain at odds of 1/100.

The other being Sceptre back in 1903.

You wouldn’t think anyone would want to bet on a horse at such short odds but that wasn’t the case on the DragonBet pitch.

With odds of 1/50 on the board, one gentleman came up to us and wanted to have a £1 bet. It was explained to him that he would only get a return of £1.02, so it wasn’t worth betting.

He thanked us for the explanation and said, “In that case, I better have £2 on!”

To be fair, he didn’t have a moment’s sweat for his four pence profit.

Thankfully, it wasn’t all £1 bets. We struck some decent ones, including £1,000 at 11/4 and £600 at 4/1 among others. 

It was good to see a bit of action back in the betting ring and even better that we kept it in the satchel.

Trecoed was an enjoyable point-to-point. Once again, there was a lack of runners but it’s a beautifully set up course and has a real end-of-season party atmosphere.

Osian Radford got crowned Welsh men’s champion. He’s a name to look out for given previous champs include Christian Williams, Sean and James Bowen, and Evan Williams.

The ladies’ jockey championship went the way of Eleanor Williams, daughter of Evan.

She’s a stylish rider, as you’d expect given her pedigree, and will surely be seen picking up some big Saturday winners in the seasons to come.

This weekend, we’re braced for action with the Oaks and Derby headlining the show.

With the betting tank refilled, we’re ready for war!

Bring it on and pob lwc!