LEADING up to today’s opening of the point-to-point season at Toomebridge, quite a number of Northern-connected graduates were on the mark on the racecourse either here or in Britain.

Nigel Twiston-Davies’s association with Wilson Dennison continues to reap rewards with the Gloucestershire trainer sending out two former Loughanmore inmates to score at Perth last Thursday.

The two and a half mile novices’ chase winner Flying Angel, who also initiated a double for rider Sam Twiston-Davies, never actually ran in Ireland and, in fact, had a name change (from Ballymacky) before making a successful debut in a Worcester hurdle last October.

The five-year-old Arcadio gelding won a Grade 3 hurdle at Sandown in March and was only once out of the first three (when fifth) in eight starts over timber before making his chasing debut last week.

DOUBLE

Ballymalin, who brought up the father/son double in the three-mile novices’ race on his first start over hurdles, ran four times when in the care of Colin McKeever, winning a Toomebridge maiden on his final outing last October. He too struck on his British debut when claiming a bumper at Chepstow in early January.

The Loughanmore/Grange Hill Farm axis was also successful on Monday at Newton Abbot where Templeross justified odds-on favouritism in the two and three-quarter-mile novices’ hurdle on his first start of the new season. The five-year-old Presenting gelding, who fell around halfway in a maiden at Loughanmore in April 2015 on his only start between the flags, won and was second three times in four bumper runs last season.