'You can do all the sport yourself - breeding, training and driving' David Ashfroth ventures deep into the wilds of North Wales to sample the delights of harness racing.

Byline: David Ashforth

IN THE heart of Wales, the biggest harness racing event in Britain - the Tregaron Festival, featuring the Welsh Classic - was staged on Saturday.

It's a small, much-loved miracle, a testament to the vigour of a local community, and a remote one. Unless you live at Pontrhydfendigaid - and almost no-one does - it takes a long time to reach Dolyrychain Farm, where the three-day festival is held, on a flat field against the beautiful backcloth of the Welsh mountains.

Here are 4x4s that have actually been driven across fields, by men who speak Welsh and whose own sheep have been brought down from the hills to fill the bread rolls that are in danger of selling out beneath a sign reading 'Cig Coch Caron' - The Best of Wales - near another sign reading, 'Ifor Williams. Cattle Trailer for Sale.'

It's a day for Dai Jenkins (commentator), Arwyn Hughes (judge) and Eirian Morgan (farrier), although Huw Evans, chairman of the Tregaron Trotting Club, is rightly proud of the number of Irish visitors.

'There are 46 horses from Ireland,' he says. 'It's just like Cheltenham. Almost 300 horses were entered for the three days and we estimate that the Festival brings in pounds 300,000 to the area.'

It's a Festival built on self-help, with everyone working for nothing, and a third of the pounds 46,000 prize-money contributed by sponsors, with the rest raised by the participants and from gate money, plus pounds 200 from each of the 27 bookmakers for the privilege of standing for three days. The winner of the prestigious Welsh Classic receives pounds 6,000, thanks to Oriel Jones & Son, the local abattoir.

Although the event is organised by a trotting club, only one of the day's 12 races is for trotters. In the UK, in contrast to most of Europe, the predominant harness racing medium is pacing, where the horses are 'hobbled' to encourage them to move their near-fore leg and near-hind leg forward simultaneously. A hoop surrounds the front leg with a strap connecting it to a similar hoop around the hind leg.

Trotting is a more natural gait, although Evans explains that the standardbreds used for pacing adopt the gait naturally. During races, horses sometimes break out of a trot. In European trotting, this leads to disqualification. In UK pacing, it doesn't, but the driver must not gain ground as a result.

THE Festival started in 1984, as a one-day event, graduated to two days in 1989, and to three in 2002. Its enthusiastic band of supporters look enviously at the money available to the sport elsewhere. Scarlet And Gold, the ten-year-old winner of one of the six heats for the Classic, was imported from Canada, where he won over $500,000 in prize-money. There, slot machines have fuelled a string of $1 million races.

At Tregaron, each of the heats is worth pounds 800 to the winner. Each horse wears a number perched between its ears. Behind, a driver sits on a sulky, two glorified bicycle wheels with a bar between them, and a small seat in the middle.

Megan Taff, the Festival's leading rider, with nine winners, drives two of the fancied horses, Billy'O'Best and Earned Income, but Billy doesn't like the sticky ground, while Earned Income has drawn the hottest heat, and finishes third to Stoneriggs Wizzard and Blackwell Rambo.

Earned Income, a four-year-old, will soon be off to Canada. 'He is good enough to run there,' says Taff. 'He could easily earn $100,000 in his first season. Here, if he won everything, he might win pounds 10,000.'

Megan's husband, David, is one of about ten professional trainers. 'We were both brought up in harness racing,' Megan explains.

'We train at the track at Tir Prince in North Wales. It's a bug. Once it's caught hold of you, you can't let go. The season runs from Easter to November, there are meetings every week, and the horses are very tough. A horse might have 25 races in a season and the fitness levels are very high.

'Driving involves split-second decisions, and timing is essential. Today, I wouldn't want to be firing out of the gate, because on this ground you wouldn't get home.'

A Land Rover with a metal frame at the back - the gate - with lights on top, leads the sulkys towards a rolling start. The green light flashes, and they're off - two circuits of the left-handed half-mile turf track. It's fast cat-and-mouse, energetic (for the horses) and, finally, frenetic.

GEOFF DUNNE has brought Slingshotscoot, and six other horses, from Kildare, where he has a haulage business. '

'My granddad was in harness racing for 50 years,' he says. 'It's just something that's in you. It costs me a fortune but I've no other hobbies and it's a great buzz.'

Dunne won a race, but Slingshotscoot only finishes fourth in his heat. The races are at 20 minute intervals, and the action's fast, including in the beer tent. It's a family day out, children and grandparents.

'That's part of the attraction,' says Evans. 'You can do the whole sport yourself - breeding, training and driving.

'My 13 year-old son jogs the horses and my daughter does the ribbons in their manes.'

When Brenda Dean, from Dublin, wins a heat, she had sponsored it, as well.

Shady Romance, winner of last year's Derby and of this year's Famous Musselburgh Pace, is 5-4 favourite for the final after winning her heat by eight lengths.

The final's a handicap, with the horses that have won the most prize-money starting furthest back from the gate.

Donisthorpe Light is on the gate, Shady Romance is 20 yards back, Scarlet And Gold and Armbro Lobell are 60 yards back, in the nine-runner field.

Dave Skinner, a bookmaker from Carmarthen, says that pounds 500 is a big bet for the meeting, but he sometimes takes pounds 500 bets. Some bookmakers take more.

Briwyns Sixty Seven leads into the first bend, and still leads into the final stretch, pressed by I'm Still The Man and American Beauty, with Shady Romance driving wide and getting up cosily from I'm Still The Man and Armbro Lobell, arguably the moral winner on handicap.

Shady Romance becomes the first horse to have won the Derby, the Famous Musselburgh Pace, and the Welsh Classic, and driver Mick Lord adds another Welsh Classic victory to the two he already has.

As a big silver cup appears, the announcer appeals for 'A big Tregaron roar', and the crowd of 2,000 or 3,000 happily obliges.