Creative Inertia was crowned Exeter Racecourse’s intermediate hunter chase series final after a rousing display in which he took up the lead three fences from home and galloped on to record an eight lengths success in the hands of Rex Dingle, reports Lucy Johnson.

Monica Tory’s eight-year-old had qualified for the final at Bishops Court in November where he finished second of the five runners on good to soft going.

Tuesday’s drying ground played to his strength and he put up a foot perfect display to land the prestigious race which was the culmination of seven qualifiers in the Devon and Cornwall Area.

The gelding was Crewkerne-based Ben Clarke’s last ever ride as an amateur before he retired from race riding to concentrate on training three years ago.

‘He’s been placed five times this year, and every time we wanted to run him on better ground, it started raining again! We thought he’d handle today’s drying ground and he did it really well under a good ride from Rex who’s a young amateur going places,’ he said.

Full report on Exeter’s final meeting of the season, and more pictures, see the Friday, May 18 edition of the Mid-Devon Advertiser.