Christopher Mason has a great knack with sprinters and that was in evidence once again at Sandown last week.
All bar one of Mason’s winners this year have been at five furlongs – the other was over six – and he struck again at the minimum distance when On Edge took a competitive handicap at the Esher track. Ridden by Ashley Lewis, the 9-1 shot was always up with the pace and took the lead half-a-furlong from home to win by a length.
Mason is now just one away from matching his highest tally of winners in a year. That was achieved in 2024, when the Monmouthshire handler saddled 14.
Grace Harris has long since passed her previous best tally of flat winners in a year, but she also achieved a personal milestone at the weekend when she reached 20 for the first time.
The Gwent trainer did it at Bath when Macarone got the better of a tight finish in a sprint handicap. The five-year-old was winning his second race in succession, having come home in front at Ffos Las towards the end of August. On this occasion he got the better of a three-way tussle, finishing a neck in front of Trafalger with Some Nightmare the same distance back in third.
Harris was not the only Welsh success on the card, with the father and son combination of John and Rhys Flint saddling Green Icon to land a one-mile handicap.
Mason and Harris could both be represented when Ffos Las stages its penultimate flat meeting of the year next Monday, September 21. There’s another fixture
Another Welsh trainer who could have runners in Carmarthenshire is David Evans, and he will arrive with his horses in excellent form. Evans was on the mark at Chester – one of his favourite sources of winners – at the weekend when Meet Me in Meraki landed a 10-furlong handicap under Finley Marsh.
He then followed up at Bath on Sunday when warm favourite QT Boy made all the running in the familiar colours of Wayne Clifford to win a nursery in some comfort.
David Probert also enjoyed a productive weekend. The Bargoed jockey easily won a seven-furlong handicap at Chester on Friday with King of Thunder, then took a sprint handicap on the final day of Doncaster’s St Leger meeting with Maharajas Express. It is the second time this year Probert has partnered the Ian Williams-trained six-year-old to victory.
Meanwhile, promising apprentice Mason Paetel (photographed) is heading to Australia this winter. The Bridgend rider will swap the all-weather tracks of the UK for a stint with the leading operation of Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. He is hoping his spell Down Under will prime him for an assault on the apprentice crown in 2027.
Paetel has ridden 29 winners so far this calendar year and 61 in his career to date.
