The 2007 Point to Point season of steeplechases in West Wales is scheduled to open tomorrow (Saturday) with the ever popular Vale of Clettwr Hunt event over the hill topping Erw Lon course just north of Pencader. Home to this fixture for many years, the public entrance is on the Llandysul-Llanllwni road, but horse boxes are directed along a slightly different route. Good car parking with food/drinks outlets and the children's play area are located on a superb vantage point in the centre of the course. The left-handed course is undulating, with the start just out of sight near the public entrance, but practically all the fences can be seen from the finish area. Over the brow and its a down hill run to the first hurdle as the course levels out for the next two before it's out into the country again. Entries secretary Alan Lewis reports that earlier this week the course was in very good condition and the prospects for a hugely successful family day out now appear to look exceptionally good. With all horses racing having qualified by riding with the hunts over the previous months, the exciting race card begins with the Hunt Members chase at 12 noon, so the message to all is to make sure you arrive early. Alan says that, like so many others across the region, the Clettwr Hunt has enjoyed an exceptionally good season, meeting twice each week and always with an enthusiastic following. Many of the leading trainers give their full support to the Welsh point to points and the area is also able to boost some of the very best jockeys, male and female. Unfortunately, Lucy Rowsell, who has been an enormously popular Welsh Ladies champion on three occasions and successfully rode 12 winners last season, is presently out of action. The youngest of three sisters, she is the daughter of Keith and Sandra Pearce, who train horses near Laugharne. Her elder sister, Emma, is married to well-known horseman and jockey, Dai Jones, and the other, Kelly Clapperton, is a PE instructor at the Sir Thomas Picton Secondary School at Haverfordwest. Lucy's father is a qualified surveyor and it was not surprising that, on leaving Whitland Grammar, she should study for a career in the construction industry. However, horses and riding were obviously in her blood and she later chose to spend a year working for National Hunt trainer, Jim Old, at Swinton, before moving on for a two-year stint training point to pointers with David Garndolfo at Wantage and then to the local stables of Alison Thorpe. She now works for David Brace at Margam Park, where she holds the position of stable jockey and, over recent years, she has participated in horse racing events on many circuits in all parts of England and Wales and even as far north as Scotland. Lucy, after riding a winner at Tweseldown in mid- December (later disqualified because a saddle weight was lost), suffered a fractured collar bone when her mount, Brogue Rogue, fell at Cottenham on New Year's Eve, but, undeterred, she hopes to be back in the saddle well before the Tivyside Hunt chase at Cilwendeg, Boncath, on Saturday, March 24.