Moller sends out Dandan to take honours at Mollington

Dandan and Sam Lee on their way to winning the Hunt Members Race at Mondays Warwickshire Hunt point-to-point meeting at Mollington

Sam Lee rode a double, landing the Butler Sherborn Warwickshire Hunt Members’ Subscribers’ & Farmers’ Race on Dandan and the Ray Randerson Carpets PPORA Club Members’ Maiden aboard It’ll Be Grand.

Lee sent Dandan, from Moller’s Sibford Ferris’s stables, into the lead at the fourth-last and the ten-year-old galloped away to pass the post five lengths ahead of Thyne For Ruda.

Owner Hugh Wilson’s father, Guy, also from Sibford, reported that it had taken a long time to get Dandan back on track after he had fallen and brought down a rival at Andoversford last season.

“I think he pecked a bit and someone jumped on his back,” he said.

“We ran him in this race because we were worried that it might have affected him psychologically.”

Lee had to work hard for his double as It’ll Be Grand, trained by his mother, Katie Lee, at Blisworth, went one better than in last year’s renewal in the finale by grinding out a length victory over Only A Tipple.

“He tested me,” smiled the rider. “His jumping is sharper and I can’t believe he got there, what a beauty, it’s great that it’s a winner for mum.”

The trainer, who was notching her first success since 2016, owns the nine-year-old with David Fitzgerald, who was quickly on the phone from Ayr where he was working as a racecourse commentator for At The Races.

She said: “David rides him out, the horse deserved it.

“It’s his second season with me and he had only one run previously. He was in David Pipe’s yard until we bought him at Ascot for peanuts.”

Neumond returned to winning ways for Stuart Morris’s West Haddon stables in the Avonvale Equine Practice South Midlands Area Conditions Race.

The seven-year-old went clear after jumping into the lead at the fourth-last under Jack Andrews and, despite tiring on the run-in, he still had five lengths to spare over Velvet Cognac.

The Judy Wilson-owned gelding had finished fifth on his only other start back in January and Morris said: “After he ran at Thorpe Lodge he was crippled lame and stood in the box for eight weeks. He needs decent ground and I would say he will improve for the run, so I am chuffed to bits with the win.”

Andrews added: “It is good to get him back on track. He landed a four-timer last year and he is a fantastic little horse.”