Five years ago, a fire destroyed a stable in Cefn Fforest. In the fire, a horse - Rodney - was killed, and an unlikely syndicate's hopes of replicating an incredible success took a serious knock.
You might not know Jan and Brian Vokes by name, but you probably know the story of their horse Dream Alliance, the Welsh Grand National champion raised on an allotment and funded by a syndicate of friends paying just £10 a week to make a pipe dream a reality. After successfully breeding pigeons, Jan (now 69) and Brian (now 75) turned their hand to training race horses and took home some of the top accolades.
It's a story since adapted for the big screen, with Toni Collette and Owen Teale playing the couple, and Dream Alliance's sensational journey has become the stuff of folklore. But in 2017, a stable fire killed their "star in the making" Rodney, who was due to start training in the spring in the hopes of following in Dream Alliance's footsteps.
