LAST Sunday’s Westmeath Foxhounds’ meeting at Castletown-Geoghegan brought to mind some great racing at the venue in the past.

In 1978, the open lightweight for the Barbour Cup was won by Timmy Jones on the Harwell gelding Tullyallen and the open heavyweight race saw Mulberry Flyer beat the Cecil Ross-ridden Seaville by two lengths. The winner, who carried 13st, was owned and trained by Basil Brindley and ridden by his daughter Julie, who is now chairperson of the Side Saddle Association of Ireland.

Names from the past were also recalled when looking at the results of the hunt’s 1988 meeting when the winning riders were Paul Larkin, Martin McNulty, John Banahan, John Sleator (who landed the open on Ivon Keeling’s good mare Lillys Way), Richard Kehoe and Micky Walsh.

Those who rode winners in 1998 were John O’Connell, Harry Fowler, Ross Geraghty (whose mount Viviennes Joy was later disqualified as she didn’t hold a hunter’s cert), John Robinson (who brought up a double in the open on Peter Lawler’s Sally Willows), Dick Sheil, Philip Dempsey and current man of the moment, Gordon Elliott.

J.D. Moore recorded a treble at Castletown-Geoghegan in 2008 while locally-based Ciaran Murphy landed a double on the Dot Love-trained pair, Haze Bleu (in a division of the six and seven-year-old mares’ maide) and Ballintue Road (in the open). Last weekend, Murphy gave his brother Aaron the leg-up on Chis Donnelly’s Donjon in the adjacent hunts’ winners’ race and he and the French-bred gelding won for the second week in a row.

The race was sponsored by the Tullaghansleek Stud, long time supporters of the meeting.