LAST weekend the Louth Foxhounds were twice blessed with a dry, sunny day and a large crowd at their new venue of Bellurgan Park.

The track is a long three miles and, combined with Sunday’s soft to heavy going, it wasn’t surprising to see the times range from 7.17 minutes in the opening four-year-old mares’ maiden to 7.43 in the concluding six-year-old and upwards geldings’ maiden for novice riders. The venue doesn’t provide viewing quite as good as Tallanstown but if you walked down the middle of the track you could see all but the first of the five fences.

In spite of the move from their traditional spring setting, it was good to see the same race sponsors supporting the hunt and the colour racecard carried plenty of advertisements. The enclosure contained the usual bar, tea-tent, stalls and plenty of children’s entertainment while all around the sides of the upper part of the track, there were lots of picnics being enjoyed at cars and jeeps. There were 12 bookmakers in attendance along with ‘away’ layer Franco Hughes.

It was most disappointing for both the Iveaghs and Duhallows that the recent spell of bad weather put paid to their meetings. The Iveaghs have been granted a new date for their fixture at Maralin which will see the Northern season end on Saturday, May 21st, a week later than scheduled.