The welcome rain of the  past week made for an altogether more interesting card at Ludlow this afternoon, as 52 runners spread across the six races, allowing each way betting in all but two of the races.

Several hundred Racing TV subscribers, members of the eponymous club, enjoyed a blistering start to the afternoon as Jonathan Burke earned his riding fee in a tight finish to the 2m Maiden Hurdle on Snatch A Glance. Successful here in a bumper back in October, the five year old had been beaten just 2l in his debut over hurdles here a month ago, enough for the market to send him off the 5.4 favourite. But it was anything but plain sailing come the finish. Mel Rowley’s Cheesy Icon, held up in rear in what appeared to be two concurrent races, made steady headway through beaten horses from halfway to appear in contention turning in. This was something of an improvement on his last 3 runs over hurdles, and the head deficit at the line was only because of hanging in slightly in the run-in. Shane Quinlan and Cheesy Icon will be winning afore too long.

Fergal O’Brien, successful in the opener, was the wrong side of a tussle for first place an hour later in the Tim Preece Building Supplies Chasing Excellence Beginners Chase. Sadly just a four runner field, nonetheless one with some impressive credentials.

A head-in-chest Double Powerful bowled along in front, Monmiral and Wyenot in close attention, Kamsinas 7l adrift. In-play betting would have had Monmiral win this based on superior form over hurdles. Monmiral, second to Gowel Road in the Cleeve Hurdle in January, asserted from the seventh, but was far from foot-perfect, and his bolt was largely shot by the 15th, Double Powerful and Wyenot going on. The first of these slid to his knees at the third last leaving Wyenot to kick on, with Kamsinas, who had crept back into the picture, the main challenger. In another thrilling finish, Wyenot regained the lead strides from the line under David Bass to give Henry Daly a sixth winner of the season, the winning distance a neck.

Sandwiching this race over the larger obstacles were two handicap hurdles, the first over 2m, the second a mile longer. Harry Cobden had to ask no great effort of No More Bolero in the first of these to beat Bluenose Belle 13l and keep favourite backers happy. Another winner for globe-trotting James Owen, this his 64th winner of the term, now approaching nearly £600,000 in prize money.

In contrast to the serried ranks of Owen-trained runners, those from Ledbury-based Matt Sheppard are more select in nature, and by and large among the smaller racecourses. However, as Matt proudly asserts, his business is all bought and paid for, unlike many of our larger trainers, whose mortgages keep them awake at night. Tracking Treasure was prominent throughout, sent on 3 out by Tom Bellamy and winning readily enough by 4 1/4l to secure the stable’s second winner of the month.

Winners of the fifth held dubious records; Pam Sly for travelling the furthest, and Jack Andrews for being the tallest rider in the weighing room. Those oddities weren’t a handicap to winning the 2m Prostate Awareness Week Handicap Chase with 18/1 shot Rumoursareflying by a 2 1/4l margin. The seven year old is now a winner of two of his six starts over fences and in this grade, he’s more than competent to add to that score.

Harry Cobden, who’d probably thought his best chance of the day was with Monmiral, concluded the day with a winner in the mares novices handicap hurdle, outpointing Henry Daly’s Briery Butterfly by 2 1/4l on Evan Williams’ Princess Keri, defying a rise in the weights to win her second on the bounce within a fortnight and send favourite backers home happy.