NO doubt about it. When it comes to former northern-trained point-to-point horses winning on the racecourse in the past week, the star of the show is the magnificent Henry de Bromhead-trained Honeysuckle.

The Sulamani mare’s 13th straight racecourse victory in Sunday’s Baroneracing.com Hatton’s Grace Hurdle, in which she was bringing up a hat-trick in that Grade 1 contest under regular jockey Rachael Blackmore, is well covered elsewhere in this paper.

Here, it’s the usual reminder that the British-bred bay’s first success came in the colours of Sara O’Hare in a four-year-old mares’ maiden at Dromahane on her only start in a point-to-point.

She was then trained by Jerry Cosgrave and ridden by the owner’s husband Mark who had given just €9,500 for the subsequent nine-time Grade 1 winner at Tattersalls Ireland’s 2017 Derby Sale.

Veteran

On Wednesday, at Haydock, the Dan Skelton-trained Blaklion, another British-bred horse, won the veterans’ handicap chase over an extended three miles in the hands of the trainer’s brother Harry.

This was a 10th track success for the 12-year-old Kayf Tara gelding and his first since early December 2017 when he landed the Grade 3 Randox Health Becher Handicap Chase over the Grand National fences, under Gavin Sheehan.

The bay was then trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies whose Grange Hill Farm yard he joined after winning the five-year-old geldings’ maiden at Tinahely in early January 2014.

Blaklion, who was having his fourth start that day in Co Wicklow, was then trained by Colin McKeever for Wilson Dennison and recorded his 11-length success under Steven Clements.

On a quiet week for him, Brian Hughes notched up his 106th win of the season at that Haydock meeting when he landed the near two-mile ‘Introductory’ hurdle on the Donald McCain-trained A Different Kind. In a three-runner race, the four-year-old Doyen gelding held off the 8/11 favourite, Green Book, by a length.

Two days earlier at Ayr, Hughes wore the colours of the late Trevor Hemmings to victory on the Nicky Richards-trained Famous Bridge in the near two-and-a-half-mile novices’ hurdle.