Grand National Winner to be Star at Towcester Races

Mon Mome at Aintree last week courtesy of Gavin James - gjmultimedia.co.uk

GRAND National winner Mon Mome will be the star attraction for a bumper Bank Holiday crowd at Towcester on Sunday when the action gets underway at 2.10pm.

Mon Mome’s trainer Venetia Williams could already lay claim to being the ‘first lady’ of Towcester. Now though, her soaring reputation has been given even greater momentum after the nine year-old French bred became the first 100/1 winner of the Aintree showpiece in 42 years in the hands of jockey Liam Treadwell.

As well as parading Mon Mome, the Herefordshire handler will be keen to send out more winners at the Northants course on Sunday. More successful at Towcester than any other yard during the course of the past ten seasons, she has notched a total of 45 scorers going back to the start of the 1999/2000 campaign.

That puts her ahead of the likes of Jonjo O’Neill (41), Henry Daly (28) and Nigel Twiston-Davies (27) so she was never going to disappoint her legion of Northamptonshire followers in the wake of last weekend’s triumph.

Fittingly, given the pedigree of Mon Mome, who was second to Kilbeggan Blade in a 3mnovices’ hurdle at Towcester in January, the first entry on the list is aptly named A French Horse who has been second on his last two starts at Uttoxeter and Doncaster.

However, the trainer may also field runners with solid course form and experience under their belts, such as Pterodactyl , successful here in a 2m novices’ hurdle at Towcester’s last meeting on March 26th, and Pliny, a winner of a National Hunt Flat race here on Boxing Day under Will Biddick.

National winning jockey Liam Treadwell is also no stranger to the winner’s enclosure as he has ridden three winners on the track this season, while in 2007/08 he was on board the 33/1 winner Taran Tregarth here.

General Admission is £10.00 to over 16’s – FREE parking. Gates open at 12.00 – First race 2.10pm

www.towcesterracecourse.co.uk

Do you know Bernard…

A local business in Towcester is calling out to the people of Northants to ask if they know a very generous customer who visited them last week.

Towcester Tearooms is fundraising for both The Alzheimer’s Society and MacMillan Cancer Support this year, culminating in this summer’s challenge where 8 local men, including the Tearooms owner, Tony McMurray will attempt to cycle the full length of the British Isles, from Lands End to John-O-Groats.

Last Wednesday a customer approached Tony’s wife, Sharon McMurray, and offered the services of his band for free as part of this year’s fundraising efforts.

Sharon said, “We are often complimented on the various charitable events we run and on this occasion the gentlemen kindly offered the services of his band for an event of our choice. He wrote down his details but during what was a very busy day in the Tearooms these details were misplaced and we are now very keen to contact him through the local press”

The details of this kind Samaritan are as follows:

• His name is Bernard
• He is from Northampton
• He was in Towcester on Wednesday April 1st and was joined at the Tearooms by a female colleague
• He is part of a four piece band
• Bernard told Sharon that his band had done charitable work in the past.

If you recognise Bernard or the band from the description given you are encouraged to contact Sharon at the Towcester Tearooms on 01327 358200 or towcestertearooms@hotmail.co.uk

Tony added, “The LEJOG team (Lands End to John-O-Groats) met last week and we all agreed that we would invite Bernard’s band to perform at a final fundraising event to be held locally. It would be a great way to close off our year of fundraising and a final opportunity to add to our total funds raised”