A horse reared on an allotment above an old slag heap and owned by a group of amateurs, including an Asda cleaner, a pub landlord and a retired noodle maker, is in the running to win Britain's biggest horse race.
He replied: "Don't be fecking stupid." But the journey had begun. Through word of mouth, Mr Vokes found a young man in Llanelli willing to sell a mare called Rewbell for £1000.
Mr Vokes knocked him down to £300 before Mrs Vokes, feeling sorry for him, gave the the seller an extra £50 in 'luck money.' With Mr Davies recruited as 'racing manager', and a copy of a turf directory, the trio narrowed the selection of stallions down to three within budget, wrote their names on the back of a beer mat and turned up their mats in order of preference. Bien Bien, untried in his first season at stud, was selected as first choice. The foal that resulted was named Dream Alliance. Born at a local vet's, the horse spent his first formative winters on a tenth of an acre mud patch with his mother and chickens and ducks for neighbours. The view from his 'stable' was the rear of a terrace of old, grey council houses and keeping him in were various types of chain link fence, an occasional rail and six-foot high steel mesh more commonly used to keep people out of building sites.
His summer turn-out was an acre of grass next to some playing fields. They knew they needed a trainer. They had a short-list of three and after visiting the stables of Philip Hobbs, near Minehead, they plumped for him. "When we went down there Brian had his leg in plaster and was weighing about 20 stone," recalls Mrs Vokes.
"The place was lovely. Philip took Dream Alliance as a three-year-old during the yard's quiet time in May and said he thought he had promise." Despite the win in the Welsh Grand National, Mrs Vokes is nervous about Aintree.
"Dream Alliance can run a fantastic race one day and then the next time he doesn't want to know," she said. "I don't know what goes on in his mind. "He's capable of winning but is he going to win? So many things can go wrong, he could get brought down at the first. I'm excited, it's hard to explain, I want to be there but at the same time I don't." A patriotic Welshman, Mr Davies is more relaxed. "Aintree is easier to contemplate now that he's already won the Welsh National. "That was the big one in our eyes because 17 of us are Welsh. Whatever happens at Aintree he's done far more than we ever expected." Outside the Square Café in Blackwood, the meeting place for syndicate members which includes café owner Rob Rossi, Mr and Mrs Vokes were posing for photographs on Thursday. A passing car slowed down, the occupant leaned out of the window and asked Brian, distinctive in that visible tattoos outnumber his teeth, if he was 'Dream Alliance'.
"Yes" he replied.
"Oh good," said the woman shaking his hand and wishing him luck. "I've never met anyone famous before."
It is the unlikeliest of Grand National stories.
But when the tape rises on Dream Alliance and the 39 other starters at Aintree on Saturday, thousands of punters will be hoping that the nine- year-old gelding will rip up the form book once again to provide the fairtale ending the script requires. The horse, which won the Welsh National at Chepstow in December after recovering from a career-threatening leg injury, has already attracted the attention of a Los Angeles production company, and at 33-1, the bookies clearly see him as having a reasonable chance. Dream Alliance will be cheered on in Liverpool by a syndicate of twenty-three friends who have spent £10 a week each to bring him to the point where he can compete with racehorses owned by some of the sport's richest patrons. The syndicate is led by Brian Vokes and his wife Jan, who clearly has the Midas touch when it comes to breeding animals. A regular winner of 'best in show' with her whippets, she moved on to pigeons – a sport, she admits, she went for because she liked their cooing - breeding a winner of the prestigious Welsh South Road national at her first attempt. But she had never thought about racehorses until she overheard a conversation in a working men's club in the small town of Blackwood, Gwent. Local tax adviser Howard Davies was reminiscing about the horse he had owned 20 years previously and Mrs Vokes thought she 'wouldn't mind a bit of that'. "'Brian,' I said, 'go and buy me a thoroughbred mare. We're going to breed a racehorse."He replied: "Don't be fecking stupid." But the journey had begun. Through word of mouth, Mr Vokes found a young man in Llanelli willing to sell a mare called Rewbell for £1000.
Mr Vokes knocked him down to £300 before Mrs Vokes, feeling sorry for him, gave the the seller an extra £50 in 'luck money.' With Mr Davies recruited as 'racing manager', and a copy of a turf directory, the trio narrowed the selection of stallions down to three within budget, wrote their names on the back of a beer mat and turned up their mats in order of preference. Bien Bien, untried in his first season at stud, was selected as first choice. The foal that resulted was named Dream Alliance. Born at a local vet's, the horse spent his first formative winters on a tenth of an acre mud patch with his mother and chickens and ducks for neighbours. The view from his 'stable' was the rear of a terrace of old, grey council houses and keeping him in were various types of chain link fence, an occasional rail and six-foot high steel mesh more commonly used to keep people out of building sites.
His summer turn-out was an acre of grass next to some playing fields. They knew they needed a trainer. They had a short-list of three and after visiting the stables of Philip Hobbs, near Minehead, they plumped for him. "When we went down there Brian had his leg in plaster and was weighing about 20 stone," recalls Mrs Vokes.
"The place was lovely. Philip took Dream Alliance as a three-year-old during the yard's quiet time in May and said he thought he had promise." Despite the win in the Welsh Grand National, Mrs Vokes is nervous about Aintree.
"Dream Alliance can run a fantastic race one day and then the next time he doesn't want to know," she said. "I don't know what goes on in his mind. "He's capable of winning but is he going to win? So many things can go wrong, he could get brought down at the first. I'm excited, it's hard to explain, I want to be there but at the same time I don't." A patriotic Welshman, Mr Davies is more relaxed. "Aintree is easier to contemplate now that he's already won the Welsh National. "That was the big one in our eyes because 17 of us are Welsh. Whatever happens at Aintree he's done far more than we ever expected." Outside the Square Café in Blackwood, the meeting place for syndicate members which includes café owner Rob Rossi, Mr and Mrs Vokes were posing for photographs on Thursday. A passing car slowed down, the occupant leaned out of the window and asked Brian, distinctive in that visible tattoos outnumber his teeth, if he was 'Dream Alliance'.
"Yes" he replied.
"Oh good," said the woman shaking his hand and wishing him luck. "I've never met anyone famous before."
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