A.P. McCoy may well have retired from racing but the Toomebridge native showed that he had lost none of his competitive edge when leading a team of National Hunt jockeys to victory over a squad of event riders at Barbury Castle horse trials last weekend.

The JCB Champions Challenge in aid of the Injured Jockeys Fund saw McCoy, Richard Johnson, Sam Twiston-Davies and Wayne Hutchinson (stable jockey at Barbury in Alan King’s yard) win a jump-off over the team of New Zealanders Andrew Nicholson and Mark Todd and leading British internationals Harry Meade and Tina Cook (nee Gifford).

Nicholson went on to win the top-graded event of the weekend for a record fourth consecutive time on Avebury while Todd landed the retrained racehorses’ section on the Irish-bred NZB Ocean, an 11-year-old by Saddlers’ Hall who ran under the name Front Street.

Todd also finished third in the CIC2* on Amacuzzi who was first ridden here for Sandra Hamilton by Stuart Crawford. On Sunday, the Larne trainer saddled John O’Hagan’s Run With The Wind to land the Perth Silver Cup Handicap Chase under Peter Buchanan on just his second start for the yard.