Welsh Grand National winning trainer Mel Rowley admits her little yard now has a big decision ahead of them over what happens next for Val Dancer following Friday’s big success in the fog at Chepstow.
The Shropshire-based husband and wife team from Morville have only been training under National Hunt rules since Mel got her British Horse Racing Authority licence early in 2021, but the seven-year-old gelding’s triumph was their biggest victory to date.
Now she and husband Philip Rowley need to discuss where best to target the horse after winning a prestigious race that has produced past Cheltenham Gold Cup winners like Burrough Hill Lad, Cool Ground, Master Oats, Synchronised and Native River, as well as Grand National winners too, Earth Summit, Bindaree and Silver Birch.
“We’re a little yard from Shropshire,” Mel told BBC Sport. “We try to do the best we can with what we’ve got. We run race by race.
“For him to come and do what he’s done, inevitably the question has already been asked. I don’t know the answer yet, but it will be talked about and discussed. And it would be remiss of us not to consider another long-distance race.”
Conditions in the fog at Chepstow were so bad that, following the first race, course officials and senior jockeys held an impromptu inspection to discuss whether the rest of the card could take place.
The fog did then lift a little but viewing was difficult and the course authorities have still honoured their ‘Wet Weather Guarantee’ by making an offer of free admission to any advance ticket holders at any of their meetings in the first three months of 2025.
While Mel may not yet know what the next step is, she admits that the decision to enter the Welsh National for the first time with Val Dancer was only taken after Charlie Deutsch, who had won on him before, then won comfortably over three miles two furlongs at Carlisle at the start of November – and thought he would comfortably stay half a mile further over the Welsh National’s three miles and six furlongs.
“We were a little bit reluctant to bring him but, when Charlie Deutsch rode him at Carlisle and said that the horse was made for the Welsh National, that made up our minds,” she said.
“Charlie Deutsch was elsewhere, so our other Charlie (Hammond) took up the reins.”
Val Dancer has now won six times since he had his first run in May 2022, finishing second in a bumper – a flat race run under the rules of jump racing – at Worcester, then going over hurdles at Aintree in the November.
His first win quickly followed at Bangor three weeks later and he then moved up to steeplechase fences in November 2023 at Ludlow, followed by three straight wins round the turn of the year in heavy conditions at Leicester, Wetherby and Catterick.
His three victories have been under three jockeys, Hammond, Deutsch and Alex Edwards, who have now all won on him twice. But this latest was not a complete surprise to the Rowleys.
“We knew the horse was really well,” said Mel. “He’s come of age this year. He’s grown a personality and become much more confident in his own ability. We knew he was in a good place.
“He needs softer ground and another concern was that it wasn’t going to be soft enough. Yet he’s travelled so well, maybe we can now consider all sorts of ground.
“But he is only seven. He has age on his side. He will tell us. That’s the most important thing. He’s got plenty of time.”
The Rowleys have been training point-to-point horses at their unassuming yard just off the main Bridgnorth to Much Wenlock road for almost 25 years now – before then going ‘under rules’ in 2021.
“We’ve been established in point-to-point since about 2000,” said Mel. “But it changed in Covid when we coudn’t run any of our point-to-pointers.
“I had already got halfway through my training modules. The HRA allowed me to do the other half and I got my full licence in February 2021.
“The point-to-pointers train in Philip’s name and the National Hunt horses in my name but it’s all very much a team effort.
“We’ve got point-to-pointers entered at Chaddesley Corbett this Sunday. We’ll both be there, we’ll still support it and long may that continue.”
By then, she may also have had the chance to celebrate their Chepstow victory properly.
She could not take any more than a token sip of champagne in the winning owners’ room as she had “got to drive the horsebox home”.
