RANDALSTOWN (Sara Louise Wilson) and The Grassy (Bex Hunter), champion and reserve in this year’s Down Royal Racecourse racehorse to riding horse league, are travelling down to today’s Iverk show in Co Kilkenny for the Irish Thoroughbred Marketing racehorse to riding horse supreme championship final.

The starting line-up will also feature another Northern entry in the Rachel Ferres-owned and ridden Nanaimo, a nine-year-old Philanthropist gelding who finished third recently at the Dublin Horse Show.

There are also retraining and open classes (judged under the Racehorse to Riding Horse Ireland rules) which are open to both qualified and unqualified horses but only qualified horses can proceed to the final.

RACING AT DOWN ROYAL

There will be racing at Down Royal next Friday, September 1st, when the track hosts an afternoon of National Hunt fare. The feature race will be the Kerry Foods Hurdle of €20,000 over three miles and 88 yards.

Further on the racing front over the past week we were delighted to see that the Nicole McKenna-trained Sir Ector still retains his desire to win when landing the near three-mile handicap hurdle at Sligo on Tuesday evening.

And, now becoming one of our favourite horses, the Brian Kennedy-bred Arctic Flower brought up a four-timer at his favoured track Lingfield the previous afternoon.