“But I was convinced the switch would be good for me and I knew that legally, there was nothing anyone could do to stop me.”The financial package was obviously a big temptation but my friendship with Jason Leonard [the Quins captain and England prop] was also a deciding factor.”I’m a full-time rugby player now and as a result, my fitness is probably better than it has ever been I’m keen and focused and I feel in good shape This is a big season for all of us. Why? Because he’s a class footballer.”Now that he’s out of that incestuous Welsh club environment, he’s in the perfect position to establish himself alongside Martin Johnson as the best lock in British rugby.”Best’s view that the Welsh overreacted to Llewellyn’s move – “the way they went on, he might just as well have been signing to play for Mars” – is shared by the player himself. He’s doing everything right for us at the moment and as we find our feet with our new 15-man game, he’ll get even better. “I’d liked the look of Gareth for a couple of years and when the game went professional he was one of the first players I approached,” Dick Best, the Quins coach, said “I don’t regret it. Much to the chagrin of his detractors, Llewellyn will be the one exile on view at the Arms Park.Back in the summer, his international future looked anything but secure. His decision to pursue a professional career on the wrong side of the Severn Bridge caused such a furore that the mild mannered Bowring was moved to lambast “the English millionaires who have set a market rate that is totally unrealistic” and raise the spectre of players earning “first- class wages for third-rate performances”.Bath remain convinced that brilliant Welsh scrum-half Rob Howley pulled out of a move to the Recreation Ground after last-minute threats from the Welsh hierarchy, although Bowring emphatically denies the use of strong- arm tactics.What is clear is that while Harlequins may be shelling out a first-class salary for Llewellyn and his brother Glyn, they are getting more than their pound of flesh in return. Llewellyn, the Neath captain, might fit snugly into that vision, but Llewellyn the Harlequins mercenary?
It is significant that while Bowring feels able to ignore, for the time being at least, some outstanding talents who had just returned to the valleys from rugby league – Scott Gibbs, David Young, Stuart Evans and the injured Richard Webster are all in the current Welsh squad – he is not willing to sacrifice his prodigal lock.

“We made strides in last season’s Five Nations’ Championship by adopting a style that was not romantic, but attempted to practically fulfil what we could best offer as a culture and a race,” he said. The urbane and articulate Bowring is nobody’s idea of a one-eyed patriot, but he talks earnestly about “Welshifying” his side. If Kevin Bowring, the national coach, was ever going to drop his prodigiously gifted but wayward second row, it would have been this week. Instead, Llewellyn pulls on the red shirt for the 49th time when France visit Cardiff for a friendly international tonight. Gareth Llewellyn has always had his critics, but the doubters who portray the most-capped forward in Welsh rugby history as a lazy under- achiever have finally lost the argument. Long may it continue,” said Bell, whose two winners, both partnered by stable jockey Michael Fenton, scored by an aggregate of 12 lengths.
Shining Cloud was backed from 12-1 to 7-1 and made all the running up the stands rail to win by six lengths.. Michael Bell completed a 47-1 double with Shining Cloud and Girl With The Wind at Nottingham yesterday to take his seasonal tally to 41 winners, only one short of his 1995 total

“My horses have hit a rich vein of form.

The Aga Khan will have to keep in contact by telephone to discover his fate at the Festival of British Racing and, of course, Newton-le-Willows.QUEEN ELIZABETH II STAKES: Hills odds: 9-4 Bosra Sham, 5-2 Mark Of Esteem, 3-1 Ashkalani, 7-1 (with a run) Shake The Yoke, 8-1 Bijou d’Inde & First Island, 12-1 Charnwood Forest, 25-1 Soviet Line, 33-1 Matiya.. He will not, however, be accompanied by his owner, who has an engagement in Pakistan this weekend. The colt is trained on the outskirts of Paris, at the private complex of Aiglemont, by Alain de Royer-Dupre, who may have wished for a first winner in Britain when he blew out the 52 candles on his birthday cake yesterday.Ashkalani, who was shortened to 3-1 (from 7-2) by William Hill yesterday, did his final piece of serious work on Les Aigles earlier this week and will transport with him heaps of confidence when he travels to Berkshire. It is ironic that Timarida, who has won in France, Germany, Canada, the United States and Ireland, where she is trained, should use the forum of Royal Ascot’s Queen Anne Stakes to turn in the worst display of her career.Similarly, Ashkalani has been beaten only once in his life, but that was on his sole venture to these shores, also at Royal Ascot, in the St James’s Palace Stakes.Ashkalani is well fancied to make repair on Saturday, not least because he is considered among the best horses ever reared by his owner-breeder. “There are a handful of promising ones among them but we will have to see how they develop with their races this year and throughout the winter.”The Aga Khan has in fact had only five runners since his re- entry to the British arena, but all have been sent into play with outstanding chances. As ever, the batch of Aga Khan horses is not bred to supply a battery of juvenile flying machines.

“We knew all along that what we got would not be sharp two-year-olds but horses more likely to excel at three and now we’re just getting ready to run a few of them,” Cumani said. “We need to have the best horses and the best owners here.”If everyone believes the best horses in the world are here, they will come to watch the highest standard and come to buy the highest standard.”Cumani is unsure as yet of the precise standard of the fresh intake. “If you believe that British racing should be seen as the No 1 in the world, it’s very important that the Aga Khan should race his horses here,” the trainer said. “So it was great news for the yard when it was announced about this time last year that the Aga Khan was coming back,” the Italian said yesterday.Cumani believes the Aga’s return is beneficial, not just for him personally but also confers prestige on the whole of the sport in this nation. Stoute still has none of the Aga Khan’s horses, but Cumani, who trains Mandilak, is in possession of 12 juveniles and opens a new era this weekend.When 40 of the Aga Khan’s well-bred beasts disappeared from Cumani’s Bedford House yard at the beginning of the decade it was a fearsome blow as he recovered from the effects of the recession and exodus of American owners from his stable. The colt, who has an alternative engagement at Ascot on Sunday, will be the Aga Khan’s first British-trained runner since he withdrew his horses from here over the disqualification of Aliysa from the 1989 Oaks.
The intervening five years have been hurtful to those who are sustained by watching good horses, but the removal was more immediately devastating to the owner’s principal trainers in Britain, Michael Stoute and Luca Cumani. Whatever Mandilak achieves in his racing career, his name is destined to be immortalised in sports quizzes for years to come as he transports the much-missed green and red colours up the straight at Newton-le- Willows.

While victory for his Ashkalani in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes would dominate the afternoon’s attention, the course televisions could show a symbolically more significant performance 25 minutes later in the comparatively prosaic Knutsford Maiden Stakes at Haydock. Visitors to Ascot on Saturday may be treated to the notable sight of witnessing the Aga Khan’s first winner in British after a five-year exile. They can compare two types of price and decide which they want before the off.
“Variations between Tote and SP prices are an accepted norm, but anyone with a UK betting account and an Internet connection can actually bet live from anywhere in the world using this enhancement to the British Racing Centre service.”. Live betting shows from bookmakers and the Tote on the same screen are to be available on the Internet, it was announced yesterday.