Sunday’s Old Roan Chase may well be the source of a “What Happened Next?” in pub quizzes or Question of Sport following the latest renewal which saw a brief interlude from the October wet weather produce yet another obstacle to racing at Aintree this afternoon. Low sun contrived to force the omission of six of the ten fences in this Grade II contest, with a long run on the flat to the finish from the end of the back straight.

Yet that won’t have bothered Ross-on-Wye handler Ryan Potter one bit. His 25/1 rank outsider Jetoile, owned by Jane Bennett, and running in what others evidently thought above his rank under Daryl Jacob, ran a copybook race to win by 1 3/4l from Minella Drama from the McCain yard, and Sam Thomas’s Al Dancer.

Ryan is a relative freshman to the professional ranks, having trained pointers from a base in Winchcombe until a few years ago. In his, his third season as a licensed professional, he scooped his first graded race with a well executed plan in which the lack of fences played little part. His yard is under 3 miles from Herefordshire’s best known Jumps handler in Venetia Williams, part of the same Caradoc Court estate, albeit the opposite side of the Wye, arguably the country’s best known river since the release of the fourth series of Sex Education.

The Potter story is certainly one of progression, and if 2022-23 looked a breakthrough year with 14 winners amassing £156,934 in prize money, exceeding that in this current season looks well within grasp with the addition of this handsome £45,560 prize that takes stable earnings well above £111,000. Jetoile’s record enhances an attractive percentage in chases of 26%.

Jetoile will now likely head for the Peterborough in the third week of November or the December Gold Cup at Cheltenham.

Wincanton’s card saw another Herefordshire trainer advertising her own claims too. Thirty miles north-north west of Caradoc is Kerry Lee’s Presteigne yard, successful in a low grade novices handicap chase with 7/2 favourite Kraqueline. Lee is finishing the month with a flourish after a winner at Ffos Las last week and the runner-up berth in a handicap hurdle at Cheltenham’s opening day.