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CAPPA BLEU (IRE) FACTFILE

b g Pistolet Bleu - Cappagale (Strong Gale)

11-10-11 Form: 1/3F2P/1334-22 Owners: William and Angela Rucker

Trainer: Evan Williams Breeder: Thomas O’Connor

Cappa Bleu
Grossick Racing Photography

John Smith’s Grand National Record: 2009 State Of Play (4th); 2010 State Of Play (3rd); 2011 State Of Play (4th); 2012 Cappa Bleu (4th); State Of Play (UR 5th)

Evan Williams (Llancarfan, Vale of Glamorgan)

Unrelated to the winning jockey of the 1937 Grand National who bears the same name and also hails from the Cowbridge area of South Wales, Evan Williams was born on April 3, 1971, on his family’s farm in the village of Llancarfan in the Vale of Glamorgan. He used to get up at dawn to milk the cows before going to school. He took over the running of the farm full-time when he was 17, concentrating firstly on dairy farming and then beef when the price of milk dropped. He also started training a few point-to-pointers in 1997 but the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 decimated his herd and restrictions on the movement of livestock wiped out the point-to-point season. Williams sold his cattle at a loss after the outbreak and went to Ireland to buy 18 horses with the proceeds, going on to be champion point-to-point trainer and jockey in 2002. He rode and trained over 200 point-to-point winners. He took out his full training licence the following year and rode his first winner, Cherry Gold, in a hunters’ chase at Chepstow on April 22, 2003. Williams enjoyed his first big-race success at the same course in December of that year, when saddling Sunray to win the Finale Juvenile Hurdle at odds of 40/1. The winners continued to flow and Williams shot to national prominence with State Of Play, who followed up success in a handicap chase at Aintree’s John Smith’s Grand National meeting in April, 2006, with victory in the Hennessy Gold Cup at Newbury seven months later. The chaser went on to triumph in the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby in 2008, while other big-race success has arrived courtesy of High Chimes, who gave Williams a first Cheltenham Festival winner in the 2008 Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Handicap Chase, and Grade Two scorers Deep Purple and Simarian. In the 2009/10 season, Barizan emerged as a top-class juvenile hurdler, winning a Grade One at Punchestown after finishing second in both the JCB Triumph Hurdle and in the Matalan Anniversary 4-Y-O Hurdle at Aintree. Williams enjoyed his best season in of winners in 2010/11, with 90 successes and had 89 victories in Britain and Ireland in 2011/12. State Of Play did him proud in the John Smith’s Grand National – finishing fourth in 2009, third in 2010 and fourth in 2011 before unseating his rider in 2012 when Cappa Bleu ran fourth. Williams is assisted by top amateur James Tudor, who was champion point-to-point rider in 2007 and partnered High Chimes to his Cheltenham success. He is married to Cath who continued to train point-to-pointers after he took out his professional licence, saddling over 50 winners in two seasons including the prolific Cannon Bridge, who chalked up nine wins in a single campaign. They have three children William, Isabel and Ellie. Evan is the son of former amateur jockey Rhys Williams. John Smith’s Grand National Record: 2009 State Of Play (4th); 2010 State Of Play (3rd); 2011 State Of Play (4th); 2012 Cappa Bleu (4th); State Of Play (UR 5th); Deep Purple (PU 19th)

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