IT was good to visit Taylorstown on Saturday for the Newry Harriers’ point-to-point, but a few people I’d like to have spoken to were missing, preferring instead to get the work done at home before heading to the Kingspan Stadium to see Ulster play, and beat, Leinster.

Many racegoers commented favourably on the piece I wrote last week about Peggy Hagan, and the great accompanying photograph, and hoped that I would be writing about the owner again before the end of the season, with the champion horse title for Balnaslow being mentioned more than once.

The Graham McKeever-trained Presenting gelding, who has run consistently well in the season’s top hunters’ chases to-date, finally winning at Punchestown, currently has a rating of 120 from p2p.ie.

Foxrock, who beat the David Christie-trained mare Maple Mons, into second in the Tetratema Cup at Gowran in early March, received a mark of 123 after that 13 length victory but, as Ted Walsh’s charge has since lost his hunter chase status by running in the Irish National, one imagines he is no longer eligible for honours.