BEST wishes for a speedy recovery to Larne trainer Stuart Crawford whose left tibia was fractured when he took a kick from a passing horse while riding on the gallops last week.

As the kick resulted in a broken skin, Stuart had to spend a few days in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and, as his leg is now in a full cast for six weeks, he has to take things quietly. This could well mean no dancing at his wedding next Saturday but, as his bride to be, Jill Davidson, is a physiotherapist (horses, dogs and humans), she will know how best to get him on his feet.

WEEKEND WINNERS

The Crawford yard sent out three winners last weekend starting with Jimmy Breekie, who won the bumper at Punchestown on Saturday in the hands of Ben Crawford. On board the six-year-old for the first time, the rider was recording just his sixth track success and his first since the 2012/13 season.

Only once out of the first three in his previous six starts in similar company, the six-year-old Alkaadhem gelding Jimmy Breekie runs in the colours of Co Derry’s Bill MacKenzie, who bred the bay out of his Kotashaan mare Highland Breeze.

Ben, joint-northern point-to-point champion in 2012, partnered two winners for Newlands Farm on Sunday at Tattersalls Farm. He initiated the brace in division one of the four-year-old geldings’ maiden on Cool Getaway, who justified strong market support (6/1 to 5/4 favourite) to score by three lengths from his main market-rival, fellow newcomer King Of Kilmeague.

The Getaway gelding is owned by former trainer Roy Wilson, who gave €40,000 at last year’s Goffs Land Rover Sale for the bay out of the bumper-winning Saddlers’ Hall mare Coolnacarriga, a half-sister to the multiple winners Shutthefrontdoor (by Accordion) and Strong Project (by Project Manager).

Cool Getaway was consigned to Goffs by the Co Tipperary-based Limekiln Stud of Co Antrim native Gerry Ross, whose bloodstock agent brother Kevin had purchased Sunday’s winner at Tattersalls as a foal.

The Crawford brothers doubled up in the concluding older horses’ maiden on Sunday with the Charlie’s Angels Syndicate’s Novo Dawn, whose victory is well-covered in the point-to-point pages. Dunmurry’s Carl Donaldson bred the successful Gamut gelding out of the Phardante mare Curious Kate.

On Tuesday, the Stuart Crawford-trained Dear Sire finished second in the bumper at Sedgefield on his third start.

The four-year-old French-bred gelding, a son of Al Namix out of a Poliglote mare, was one of seven horses entered by the Larne handler for Thursday’s abandoned Musselburgh meeting.