GEORGE CHALONER, who rode his 100th winner earlier this week, is set to ride in Italy on Sunday and will miss the arrival of his girlfriend, Shelley Birkett, who is moving from Newmarket to join David O’Meara’s powerful Ryedale yard.

“It’s bad timing that I won’t be around when Shelley arrives, but it’s great to get the chance to ride in Italy again,” says Chaloner, who, along with Connor Beasley and Ireland’s Connor King, will be taking part in the Ribot Cup meeting at the San Rossore racecourse in Pisa.

“It’s an international meeting and I was lucky enough to be invited to ride there last year, though I didn’t have a winner. It’s not finalised yet as to how many races I’ll ride in, but it could be four or five. We’re flying out from Stansted on Saturday. I’m looking forward to it,” he added.

One of Britain’s top young riders in 2014, when his 50-winner season was highlighted by a Royal Ascot success on Baccarat in the Stewards’ Cup, followed just a week later by a win in the Northumberland Plate – the traditionally known ‘Pitmens’ Derby’ – on Angel Gabrial, Chaloner rode out his apprentice claim towards the end of the campaign, At Wolverhampton on Monday, he brought up his 100th winner – and his first of 2015 – when scoring on Van Wilder, trained by his Malton boss Richard Fahey, who took the meeting apart when saddling four winners at staggering accumulative odds of 1,187-1.

“It was great to get off the mark and I was chuffed that I got my 100th winner on a horse trained by Richard,” said Chaloner. “I could not wish for a better or fairer boss as he has really looked after me and given me plenty of chances.”

Fahey’s Wolverhampton haul was added to by Gabrial The Terror and Gabrial The Thug, both owned by Dr Marwan Koukash, who was celebrating his 400th British winner, and both ridden by Tony Hamilton, who has made a great start to 2015.

It was completed by Maiden Approach, who clinched the feature event under Paddy Mathers when getting home by a whisker.

Birkett, previously attached to the Newmarket stable of her trainer-mother Julia Fielden, starts with O’Meara on Monday hoping a move north will add an extra dimension to her career.

The 20-year-old has already achieved plenty in the saddle. She has ridden 51 winners, including a Listed event at Newmarket last summer on Noble Protector, and has reduced her claim to 3lb.

She explained: “Mum and I have discussed it at length and feel this is the right time for me to move on,” says Birkett. “Mum has been brilliant and has really looked after me, but she knows that I want to get on and to do that I need to join a bigger trainer.”

Birkett, who saw the vacancy for an apprentice with O’Meara advertised on a website, has already had a taste of what is to come from next week onwards. “I went to the yard to ride out for Mr O’Meara and everything went well. I was thrilled to be offered the job,” she said.

 

• DARK DUNE, who failed to shine over fences earlier this season, has benefited from returning to hurdles and may have earned himself a Cheltenham ticket after running out an emphatic five-length winner for Tim Easterby at Newcastle last Saturday.

Returned at 7-1 and partnered by James Reveley, the Great Habton gelding made every yard of the running and never looked like being caught. His success, which came on the back of a creditable placed effort over hurdles at Musselburgh, signals a return to form for Dark Dune, who holds a Cheltenham Festival entry next month in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle.

If he heads to Prestbury Park for the most prestigious jumping gathering of the entire season, he will be joining an Easterby team which comprises Run Ructions Run and Trustan Times (Pertemps Hurdle Final) and Hawk High (County Hurdle).

Last year at the festival, Easterby pulled off a 33-1 success with Hawk High in the Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle. “I’ve been happy enough with him this season. He likes decent ground,” said the trainer.

 

• OSCAR ROCK, who promised plenty over hurdles last season before losing his form in the second half of the campaign, is back on track – as a budding steeplechaser.

The Malcolm Jefferson-trained gelding got off the mark at his second attempt over fences at Newcastle last Saturday. Wearing blinkers for the first time, Oscar Rock justified favouritism at the chief expense of And The Man, the pair having finished clear of the remainder of the field in this two-and-a-half-mile handicap chase.

This was a step in the right direction for Oscar Rock, who, hopefully, can now build on this confidence booster and go on to better things in his new sphere.

Jefferson’s Double W’s also ran well in defeat at Newcastle. He finished third in the closing bumper and appeals as the sort of horse who could have a big future when his attentions are turned to hurdles in due course.

 

• JOHN QUINN, who enjoyed such a memorable 2014 with The Wow Signal providing him with his first ever Group 1 winner on the Flat, has taken charge of a close relation to the star of his Norton stable.

The Highfield trainer has acquired a two-year-old half-sister to The Wow Signal. “She’s by Zoffany and is a grand filly. I’m thrilled to have her,” said Quinn.

As for The Wow Signal, he is preparing for an all-important campaign with the Qipco 2,000 Guineas his first early-season target.

“He’s done well over the winter and is doing two canters every day,” reports Quinn. “He’s fine and is exactly where I’d want him to be at this stage of the season.”

Quinn is aiming to get a preparatory race into The Wow Signal before his date with Classic destiny at Newmarket on May 2.

“He’s a big, strapping colt and I wouldn’t want to take him to the Guineas first time out,” explained Quinn. “The Craven Stakes at Newmarket or the Greenham at Newbury are the two options and I’d probably favour the Greenham. Going seven furlongs, instead of a mile in the Craven, on his first run back, would be the most likely option.”

The Wow Signal proved a revelation last season. He was a wide-margin winner on his debut at Ayr, followed up in the Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot and then claimed Group 1 glory in the Prix Morny at Deauville in August. His final start at Longchamp in October saw him finish last of nine, but Quinn is adamant he can be forgiven that lapse. “He’d been on the go a long time and was over the top. He just never ran his race,” he said.

More immediately, Quinn is looking forward to the Cheltenham Festival, where his team is spearheaded by Aurore d’Estruval, who goes for the Grade 1 OLBG David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle after twice scoring at Listed level this season and finishing second to Irving in the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle.