Released in 2021, ‘Dream Horse’ tells the unlikely, but nonetheless true, story of Dream Alliance who, between January 2006 and December 2009, won five races over hurdles and fences for Philip Hobbs, famously including the Welsh Grand National at Chepstow. In 2000, while working as a barmaid in the Top Club in Cefn Forest, near Blackwood, in the South Wales Valleys, Janet ‘Jan’ Vokes overheard local accountant Howard Davies talking about his previous, unsuccessful, foray into racehorse ownership and was inspired to breed a racehorse of her own.
Despite having no previous experience, Jan and her husband, Brian, subsequently acquired the broodmare Rewbell – a thrice-raced maiden under Rules and ‘probably the worst racehorse in Wales’, according to Mr. Vokes – for the knockdown priceof £350. They sent the mare to the former top-class US performer, for a stud fee of £3,000, and the result of the coupling was Dream Alliance, who was born and raised on the Vokes’ allotment, before being put into training with Hobbs, in Withycombe, Somerset, as a three-year-old.
Howard Davies recruited 20 or so local people, each of whom paid £10 a week towards training costs, to form a syndicate known as the ‘Alliance Partnership’ and Dream Alliance duly made his racecourse debut at Newbury in November 2004. He went on to win twice over hurdles and twice over fences, not to mention finishing clear second to impressive winner Denman in the Hennessy Gold Cup, back at Newbury, in December 2007. However, sent back over hurdles at Aintree the following April, he severed a tendon and his owners were forced to reinvest any prize money they had won into life-saving stem cell surgery.
Thankfully, Dream Alliance recovered, but was not seen on a racecourse again until November 2009. The following month, he was sent off at 20/1 for the Welsh Grand National and, under Tom O’Brien, stayed on strongly in the closing stages to win by three-quarters of a length. Reflecting on the rags-to-riches story, Jan Vokes said later, ‘At the time, to us, we were just excited that we managed to breed a horse who would get on the racecourse, never mind do what he did.’