ACTION is limited in Ireland in the immediate pre-Christmas period, but there were still some significant winning performances at the meetings at Fairyhouse and Navan last weekend.

Both Campeador and Dunvegan are potentially very useful novices following wins for the former over fences and the latter over hurdles at Fairyhouse last Saturday.

Campeador is credited with a 133 effort, having been as high as 148 when a rather accident-prone hurdler, and Dunvegan gets 136 on what was just his second outing over obstacles.

Even more impressive performances came the following day at Navan from Battleoverdoyen in the maiden hurdle and Envoi Allen in the bumper.

The latter was 4.4s faster overall but did not have 10 flights of hurdles to jump, of course, and also carried 4lbs less. Sectionals confirm that both races were well-run.

As a result, Battleoverdoyen goes straight in at number three among novice hurdlers on 142 (one behind Secret Investor and Al Dancer), while Envoi Allen is now joint-top among bumper horses (equal with the sidelined Malone Road) on 120.

If you want an indication of how well Envoi Allen saw out his race, he completed from the equivalent of three out (roughly 2.8 furlongs from home) about 3.0s/15 lengths quicker than Battleoverdoyen had done earlier, and the latter went right away from his rivals in the process as it is.

The Grade 2 Navan Novice Hurdle was fairly underwhelming by comparison, with Easy Game credited with a 131 timefigure for beating Getareason (129) by a couple of lengths.