WEXFORD handlers may have dominated the first half of the card at Toomebridge last Saturday but the locals hit back in the last three races in which there was a very small number of southern horses.

Gerald Quinn and Dara McGill combined for a double.

This was initiated in the Dennison JCB winners’ of one where Philip McBurney’s well-related Milan bay Raceview Road, who was having his third start, followed up on his win in the five-year-old geldings’ maiden at Taylorstown in May.

In the following Wilson Waste Collection Services five-year-old and upwards mares’ maiden, McGill guided the Robert Armstrong-owned Voleur De Terres to a four-length victory on her fifth start.

The winner comes from the family of Justpourit, The Last Samuri and Saxophone and her colt foal half-brother by Old Persian is due to come up as Lot 480 at Tattersalls Ireland’s November National Hunt Sale.

Trained by Jamie Sloan and ridden by Brian Dunleavy, the 11-year-old Winged Love gelding Love And Wishes made a winning point-to-point debut in the concluding James Kernohan & Sons older geldings’ maiden and did so in the colours of his patient Co Down breeder, J.J. Taylor.

There were racecourse wins in the period under review for the Anne Wishart-bred six-year-old gelding General Medrano (Ocovango – Talween, by Nayef) in the two-mile handicap chase at Uttoxeter on Sunday; for the similarly-aged Robert McGurgan-bred gelding Whodini (Conduit – Mosey On Molly, by Beneficial) in the two and a half-mile handicap chase at Huntingdon on Tuesday; and another win for the Berry Farms-bred seven-year-old gelding Quick Draw (Getaway – Sept Verites, by Turgeon) in the three-mile handicap chase run at Ludlow on Wednesday.

FLOR Madden, chairman of the Equestrian Committee of the Royal Dublin Society, paid his first visit to Downpatrick racecourse last Friday and did so on a most auspicious occasion.

Not only did the meeting mark the official retirement as racecourse manager of Richard Lyttle (see page 16-17) but it was also announced that Downpatrick, the oldest racecourse in Ireland, had been twinned with Chantilly, the oldest racecourse in France.

While there was free entry to the meeting courtesy of the Northern Ireland On Course Bookmakers Association, Peter Stewart (chairman) and other members of the track’s board of directors, welcomed an array of annual sponsors to the fixture to enjoy lunch and a day’s racing at their leisure.

The 2024 racing season at Downpatrick will begin with the Randox Ulster National meeting on Sunday, April 7th.