Tanatside at EYTON ON SEVERN
Sunday 12th March 2000
by Mal Davies

What a difference a week makes! Last week the Severnside course was under water and the meeting fell victim to the weather; this week the crowd basked in summerlike temperatures.

Sheila Crow’s Glacial Trial, one of the favourites for the NW Area horse of the year prize made his seasonal debut in the opening Intermediate race and unsurprisingly went off as even money favourite. However, he unshipped Alistair Crow (actually, he was getting a bit behind at the time) and Tim Stephenson’s Thats Forreel won a close finish by a head from the Richard Burton ridden Rising Sap, with David Mansell (presumably with a new riding hat after his toys-out-of- pram episode on Henry Bruce earlier in the week) back in third on Robero.

Lord Harry won the Mens Open as he liked to get the Crow bandwagon back on the road. Chalking up his second success of the season he had six easy lengths in hand from runner up Nothing Ventured. Ask Anthony was challenging for a place when running out at the last. That was the last ride of the day for Alistair Crow; he presumably was feeling his Glacial Trial bruises and gave up his remaining rides.

The second hot-pot to fail to deliver was Fundy in the Ladies’ Open, pulling up 4 out, apparently with something gone wrong behind. This left Hersilia for a repeat of her usual late rattle from way off the pace, but in this instance perfectly judged by Sarah Hopkins to score by six lengths from long time leader George Dillingham. Moonstone, previously a very difficult ride went very well for Carrie Ford to gain third and with the same jockey can land an open soon.

The two market leaders dominated the Restricted. Star Changes won a desperately close finish by a neck from Seymours Double.

The first of three maidens went to Bally Harry (Ian Wynne), seven lengths in front of Dozmary Pool (Richard Burton runner up yet again). King Paddy was shaping well in the lead out but ran out. Division two was captured by the Crows’ Alstack, given a superb ride by Brendan Foster. Anna Kinsey’s Po Cap Eel was eight lengths second, and given that horse’s very poor previous record, it may be that the form of this division will not work out.

The two and a half mile maiden which concluded the meeting was won by Highbridge (Anthony Evans). The racecard said "Has faded after running prominently for 2m 4f in outings to date". Well, we can’t say we weren’t told, yet very few seem to have backed the winner, generally in the 8-1 to 10-1 range beforehand.