I PAID what is now just my annual visit to Loughanmore last Saturday for the Northern Region of Eventing Ireland’s one-day event and, having rung in advance, walked up to the racing yard to have a chat with resident trainer Colin McKeever.
He is very much looking forward to the start of the point-to-point season, as is owner Wilson Dennison, as they have plenty of four-year-olds, and some five-year-olds, and, it appears, one 10-year-old, to run during the autumn season, with a lot of three-year-olds waiting in the wings for the spring campaign.
Another local person from the point-to-point world I met on Saturday was Sarah Sproule and her mother, Amanda.
As she works full-time for Warren Ewing and so will be very busy during the season, Sarah has a limited period in which to event her horses.
She rode Ballyneety Rainbow in the EI110 on Saturday and finished third with the bay behind Gilford’s Steven Smith on the Ian Perry-bred Urneypark Big Cat.
On the market
As his owner will soon have little time on her hands, Sarah is now putting her seven-year-old Butler’s Cravat gelding on the market. All who attended the event on Saturday had to comply with Eventing Ireland’s strict Covid-19 protocols and all had their QR codes checked on arrival. Hopefully, all restrictions on public attendances which were imposed on point-to-points last season will have been lifted by the time the East Antrims run their autumn meeting at Loughanmore on Saturday, October 23rd.
THOSE racegoers fortunate enough to secure tickets for next Friday afternoon’s meeting at Downpatrick will hopefully see the return to action of jockey Davy Russell who has been out for almost a year due to a serious neck injury.
Russell will be riding for Gordon Elliott who saddled three winners at the corresponding fixture last year. The opening race that day, the Toal Bookmakers Maiden Hurdle, was landed by the Emmet Mullins-trained The Shunter who went on to win two more races over timber, including the Grade 3 Unibet Greatwood Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham’s November meeting.
The Stowaway gelding also won two races over fences, including the Grade 3 Paddy Power Plate Handicap Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March and was second in the Grade 1 SSS Super Alloys Manifesto Novices’ Chase (at Aintree the following month.
ready for points return
BIGSTICKOFRHUBARB is among the horses for whom hunter certificates were lodged recently with the IHRB.
Joy Wilson’s five-year-old Sholokhov gelding, who is being aimed at the Ballymacad meeting in Oldcastle on Sunday, September 25th, was purchased with that moniker according to trainer, Liam Lennon who has lodged certs for six other horses, three of whom are by Winged Love.
Warren Ewing also lodged certs for seven horses while Noel Kelly has lodged certs for eight, one of whom, The Breadman, is from the first Irish crop of four-year-olds by the deceased Conduit.
Among other northern trainers and handlers to have their point-to-point horses ready for the off are Caroline McCaldin, Patrick Turley, Sean McParlan, Noel Kelly, Gerald Quinn and James Lambe.