IT took the record-making A Dream To Share to spoil a bumper double for Loughanmore graduates at the Punchestown Festival.

On the Wednesday, in the Race & Stay at Punchestown Champion INH Flat Race (Grade 1), the Willie Mullins-trained Tullyhill (11/2) finished over seven lengths clear of the remainder of the field but had to settle for second behind the John Kiely-trained 8/11 favourite.

The following afternoon, in the J.P. & M. Doyle (C & G) Flat Race, the champion amateur, Patrick Mullins, enjoyed better fortune when partnering his father’s charge, Ballyburn, to a six-length victory in the colours of Ronnie Bartlett and David Manasseh.

First time out

A winner over course and distance for the Mullins team on his only other track appearance in February, the Flemensfirth gelding won his point-to-point maiden first time out in October at Loughanmore where he was trained on-site by Colin McKeever for owner Wilson Dennison. He was ridden that day by Cormac Abernethy who was also on board Tullyhill when that French-bred grey won his maiden for the same connections at Moira in early October.

It’s testament to their early upbringing at Loughanmore that some of their graduates are still catching the eye long after they have departed the racing scene. The 2008 Shantou gelding Briar Hill, who won the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham in 2013 and was also a Grade 1 winner over hurdles, won the turn-out award at the parade of ex-racehorses at the Punchestown Festival and you can read more about the life he is now leading in page 12.

Crievehill, who finished a distant sixth of nine in a four-year-old geldings’ maiden at Loughanmore in March 2016 on his only run for Dennison and McKeever, went on to win a hurdle and four chases for the Nigel Twiston-Davies yard, retiring in April 2021. Last weekend the 11-year-old Arcadio gelding won the Retraining of Racehorses division of the GB Hunt Ride League under Zack Davidson.