EARLSWOOD trainer Ron Harris is known for his sprinters, and in the three-year-old grey Glamorous Rocket, he seems to have found another good one.

The filly is now on a hat-trick in the month of June, having won on 8th June at Wolverhampton, on 25th June at Windsor and on Saturday at Lingfield. She’s owned by Robert and Nina Bailey, good supporters of the yard and also owners of the Group 3 winner Just Glamorous.

With two wins for Glamorous Rocket this week and a third for Equally Fast at Bath on Wednesday, that’s three wins in a week for the Ron Harris yard.

Penhow trainer Robert Stephens also had a winner this week – Push The Tempo won a bumper, a flat race for jumping bred horses, at Worcester.

With several of our local trainers doing well, it’s a great time to enter into racehorse ownership. Ron Harris, Robert Stephens and Grace Harris (Shirenewton) all offer racing clubs or syndicate opportunities, and the costs of having a horse in training are greatly reduced if split between a number of people!

The beauty of linking up with a local trainer is that you have the opportunity to call in to the stables to take your horse some carrots or watch it exercise on the gallops.

It’s lovely to get to know your horse, your syndicate members and your trainer and there really is no nicer way to spend a morning. If this is of interest, a trainer will be very happy to hear from you direct, or if you’d like to give the racecourse a call we can arrange an introduction on a Chepstow raceday.

Most trainers have a good website too, outlining what they can offer.

Chepstow’s meeting last Monday saw a surprise 50/1 win for Molly Jones in the 5 furlong sprint. The 9-year-old mare is trained by another Welsh trainer, Tonyrefail’s Matthew Salaman. The mare hadn’t won for a couple of years but the victory, her sixth career win, wasn’t a huge surprise to connections as she’d finished a close second at Salisbury last month.

Matthew Salaman was saddling his first winner at Chepstow. He’s the son of well known Cardiff-born jockey and trainer Taffy Salaman, whose claim to fame is that he saddled Churchtown Boy to finish second to Red Rum in the 1977 Grand National.

At Chepstow we’re in the middle of our flat racing season, but I’m keeping a close eye on the summer jump racing scene too, not least because our racecourse ambassador, and champion jockey for the last two years, Richard Johnson, has a real fight on his hands for this year’s jockey’s title.

Through the summer there are not so many jump race meetings, and Richard has been travelling far and wide for every opportunity to ride a winner. For the last few days he’s been riding at Cartmel in the Lake District. He’s doing well but Harry Skelton, riding for his trainer brother Dan Skelton, is building up a big lead in the title race. Their yard is in flying form and Dan currently leads the trainers championship too.

At the time of writing Harry Skelton is on 49 winners to Richard Johnson’s 29 winners. I imagine (and hope) that Richard will be able to eat into this lead once the winter jump season starts. He has the support of several very good trainers, but it’s definitely a race to follow in the coming months.

July is a busy month at Chepstow. Our next meeting is Ladies Evening featuring the BBC Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills, which takes place on Friday 13th. This is followed by our famous party Caribbean Night on Friday 27th.