A national Award for Jason Warner as Worcestershire stables dominate at Uttoxeter

The Point-to-Point season concluded at Kingston Blount on Sunday, a fixture more usually held at Umberleigh in Devon, but then again this has been no ordinary season.

Rarely for an area so thick with racing interest, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire owners and trainers almost never figure in the awards for the season, but this exceptional year may hopefully set a trend for the future, as Jason Warner, who trains and farms in Brookthorpe, just outside Gloucester, picked up the national Leading Owner Award for his nine winners, four trained directly at home. Los Alamos, a three time winner at Four Burrow in April and twice at Bratton Down last month, was a big contributor.

More predictably, the leading trainer award went to Tom Ellis a third time with 30 winners, the leading gentleman rider award to James King (33) and the leading lady rider to Gina Andrews. We are blessed with a very high standard of competition and riding talent presently.

Meanwhile, Worcestershire trainers have been very busy this week under both codes of the sport.

At Ascot, Ian Williams continued a welcome domination of the 2m 4f Ascot Stakes at the Royal Meeting yesterday with a last gasp victory by Reshoun, consolidating his reputation as a leading dual purpose handler, and a purple patch of form.

Meanwhile, Worcestershire's finest were making hay today at Uttoxeter's rather lower key Jumps fixture. First up, I'm So Busy won unchallenged to give Richard Newland his 14th winner of the fledgling summer season in the opening Maiden hurdle. The Newland yard enjoyed an excellent 2020-21 season where Covid restrictions failed to dampen their success rate.

Next up was Matt Sheppard, winning division I of the mares handicap hurdle by a neck in the best finish of the day. Too many like that will not do Matt and Nicky's blood pressure any good. Well done to Matt on improving a horse previously with Peter Fahey, and well done to winner Kalinda for breaking her duck at the 8th attempt.

The Tony Carroll stable is more focused on the flat nowadays, but Black Buble had a bit in hand when winning the feature handicap chase by 3 1/2l to record his maiden chase winner. That's winner number 3 over Jumps for Tony, who has already tallied 35 on the flat. There's a man who hasn't fogotten his roots as a jump jockey.