The season of local point-to-point steeplechases opened in fine style on Easter Monday with West Wales' biggest outdoor sporting event of the year, the South Pembrokeshire Hunt meeting over the excellent left-handed Lydstep course.

The course will also again be the venue for the West Wales area club meeting on Sunday, May 24, and the season ends on Saturday, June 6, with the Pembrokeshire Hunt event at Trecoed, near Letterston, with the first race at 2 pm at both.

Jump jockey John Mathias had a couple of winners at Lydstep - his 'favourite' course - and he recorded his 150th point-to-point winner when taking the Maiden, Division Two, at Kilworthy on the Kayley Woollacott-trained Winter Soldier, but last Monday, at the Banwen Miners chase at Pontardawe, he scored another incredible success, winning six of the seven races on the card, repeating an earlier feat in the Tivyside meeting at Boncath in 2011.

John, 24, originally opened his account on Howdydoody at Garnons in 2007, and won the Wilkinson Sword the same year. He has won numerous Welsh titles, was runner-up in the national championship in 2009/10 and 2011/12, and is currently lying second to Will Biddick in this season's title race.

He and his partner Amber Griffiths run a very successful yard, Norchard Stables at Manorbier, which presently houses 18 pointers, the majority of which have won or been placed this year.