Northern runners seek Ballymacad success as point-to-point season kicks off

DAVID Christie, Liam Lennon and Graham McKeever could well have the first northern-trained runners of the 2020/21 point-to-point season which gets under way tomorrow at 2pm. The first pair have, respectively, entered David Kells’s Menindee and Lynne Burns’s Carlotalin for the opening four-year-old mares’ maiden at the Ballymacad Foxhounds’ meeting in Oldcastle while McKeever has entered his own Rocked Up in a similar maiden at the Ormond Foxhounds’ fixture in Ballingarry.

Both maidens are sponsored by Tattersalls Ireland which is also sponsoring a race at next Saturday’s Fermanagh Hunt meeting at Necarne Castle, as are Dennison Commercials, Albert Bartlett, the Killyhevlin Hotel and Wright Quarry Products.

“We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Gardrum Holdings Ltd, the new operator of the Necarne Estate,” said meeting secretary, Padraig Sheridan, who reported that the clerk of the course, and Fermanagh Master, Patrick Murphy was on site last weekend with a work team preparing the Irvinestown venue for racing.

Entries close at 12 noon on Tuesday and, for this meeting and all others during the autumn season, handlers and riders are reminded of the need to familiarise themselves with the Covid-19 protocols and to complete the online health screening each week.