Racing: Prince rules for Williams

THERE WERE so few runners here yesterday - just 26 in five of the six races - that had they been available the Lone Ranger and Silver could have picked up decent prize money for themselves. Fortunately, the feature event on the card, The First National Bank Handicap Chase, featured enough competitors to satisfy both casual spectators and serious punters alike, and for the second Saturday running it was the Herefordshire trainer Venetia Williams who claimed the spoils with a comfortable 10-length win by her eight-year-old gelding Nordance Prince.

The winner of two novice chases last October, after a highly successful hurdling career, Nordance Prince was returning from a 388-day absence, a victim of "regular problems with his legs and tendons" according to Williams. Nevertheless Williams, who has a share of the horse, admitted that "this race had been targeted for him since the summer". While the owners, the Pink family, had conceived the plan on foreign beaches, the workaholic Williams had avoided holidays and nursed the horse back to the sort of fitness of which the Pinks no doubt approved - they run a gym in Carshalton.

Unfortunately his regular jockey Norman Williamson did not quite believe the clean bill of health that was issued for the horse, preferring the Irish challenger, Nicholls Cross, instead.

Richard Johnson, who had ridden Nordance Prince to one of his chasing wins at Towcester, knew the horse well enough to have him handily placed throughout as Makounji made a bold bid to win from the front under top weight.

She set a sufficiently high pace to have burnt off half the field by the time it had reached Swinley Bottom, with one of the fancies, the Ascot specialist Supreme Charm, consigned to the back of the field. Tucked in behind Makounji and co-leader Dark Stranger, Johnson took the unseating of Mick Fitzgerald on Makounji six fences out as his cue to push Nordance Prince into the clear.

The well-fancied Bouchasson was left struggling by this and though Dark Stranger continued to battle on, the deficit was lengthening by the time Nordance Prince passed the post. Nicholls Cross stayed on past tired horses to give Williamson the consolation of a place.

As to where Nordance Prince will next race, Williams could only offer a shrug as yesterday's victory was The Plan, with nothing else considered so far. But, given a return to full fitness, this most progressive horse should claim further valuable prizes as his second season of chasing unfolds. "His jumping is amazing for a small horse," said Williams admiringly, and now all eyes will be on The Outback Way, her winner of the Murphy's last Saturday, in his assault on the Hennessy next weekend.

But just to remind us that Williams is no one-woman band in the trainers' ranks, Henrietta Knight claimed the day's other big event, the Peterborough Chase over an extended two and a half miles at Huntingdon with Edredon Bleu. The seven year-old, who was runner-up to Call Equiname in the Champion Chase last March, recorded a second successive all-the-way win, seeing off the late challenge of the reformed rogue Or Royal. Edredon Bleu will drop back to two miles again next March for another tilt at the chasing crown. Meanwhile, Strong Promise - as low as 6-1 for the King George VI Chase at Kempton next month - finished tailed off on his second race after a year-long lay-off.

The thin supporting card at Ascot produced enough thrills to keep a freezing and drenched crowd happy, but for the jockey of the moment, Tony McCoy, who reached his century for the season on Friday, it was a day to forget. Second in the big race was as good as it got for him, after his first mount, Breeze Girl, was killed in a fall, while Art Prince disappointed in the second race. He picked the wrong Martin Pipe horse in the third, Out Ranking outranking stable-mate Ballysicyos, and was last on Kailash in the fifth. Not even Venetia Williams could provide him with a success in the last, as Master Henry trailed in behind the Cheltenham winner Monsignor. Whatever the numbers, this is one tough game.

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