THERE'S a busy Easter ahead for our teams at Chepstow and Ffos Las. Both courses hold Family Race Days at the weekend with Ffos Las on Sunday and Chepstow on Monday.

Children aged 17 and under go free and there is a wide range of free family entertainment including fun fair rides, face painters and an Easter egg hunt. There’s free parking too. We also have a meeting at Chepstow on Grand National day, Saturday, April 15, sponsored by DragonBet. The final fixture this month is Friday, April 28.

The focus was very much on the flat last weekend with a classy renewal of the Lincoln at Doncaster, but it was at Kempton’s supporting card that Wales scored. The David Evans-trained Dora Penny is only a four-year-old, yet in taking the six furlong fillies handicap she was winning her 10th race. She’s versatile, having won over five and six furlongs, from good to firm going to soft, on turf and the all-weather, and has carried 10 stone or more when winning four times. Rated 87 before this, she will no doubt try for some black type soon. Her jockey Oisin Murphy, riding with a 24 per cent strike rate in the preceding fortnight, was completing a treble.

David Probert had just one ride at Doncaster on Sunday, Kadovar, who was backed from 8/1 the day before to 7/2. However, he was struggling from a long way out, unlike another David Evans filly, There’s The Door. She took the lead a quarter of a mile out and stayed on well in the heavy ground to win by five lengths. Her best run last year had been her final one, over the longest trip and on softest ground she encountered. Upped an extra furlong to a mile and a quarter on this, her seasonal debut, she had no difficulty coping with the testing going.

Probert has ridden 33 winners so far this year and is fourth in the jockeys’ table. He will find it more difficult now that Oisin Murphy is back from his long suspension and resuming as first choice jockey for the Andrew Balding stable.

At Ascot, the recent Chepstow winner Eaton Collina won for Richard Patrick, making most of the running in the 2m5f novices handicap chase. He jumped markedly to the left all the way but made no serious mistakes, whereas three of his five rivals fell. He coasted home by 20 lengths and trainer Kerry Lee will presumably consider returning him to a left handed track next time.

Though Sean Bowen was out of luck at the weekend he is at least close to his 700th winner last week. He is on 698 according to the Racing Post, including Irish and flat successes.