Traditional yard set to make big strides now winter is here

Venetia Williams may be only just inside the top 50 in the trainers’ table as it stands but that won’t last long now that the winter ground is here. Soon she will be pushing into the top 20 and possibly the top ten (where she has finished in six of the past ten seasons).

Last season she finished 16th as her total of winners and prize-money dipped after four strong seasons, but she puts that down to a foreshortened winter season where the softer jumping ground she prefers was available only from mid-December to the end of March. In February and March the stable was rattling along at a 21 per cent strike-rate but then the ground dried up and so did the winners, with the smart mare Plaisir D’Amour the sole scorer in the remainder of the season.

Sum up last season in one word Short