'We needed a new hobby - so we raised a Welsh National winner on our allotment'

In a sport dominated by big names and shaped by regal bloodlines, every so often a horse from humbler origins steals the limelight and few could have made a more inauspicious start than Dream Alliance.

The 2009 Welsh Grand National winner was reared on a slag-heap allotment in the Welsh mining village of Cefn Fforest by Brian and Janet Vokes, successful breeders of whippets and racing pigeons.

Janet Vokes, 67, formed a 23-strong syndicate at the local working men's club – where she was bar manager alongside a cleaning job at her local supermarket – with each member putting in £10 per week.