THE crowd and atmosphere at the Route meeting held last Saturday at Portrush was exceptional, helped in no small way to a bright and sunny October afternoon overlooking the sea and many caravan parks of the seaside resort, which is so closely associated with the North West 200 motorcycle road races.

There were many stories told of the last meetings to take place in the area, with 1976 the last year that a meeting was held in Portrush.

A year later the Route Hunt moved to Dundaraven, Bushmills for a year before relocating again to Gracehill, Stranocum in Ballymoney in 1978. In later years they were a regular fixture at Limavady where they often staged racing over the Easter period.

The old Portrush track was almost within viewing distance of this new course, which is now a built-up area and it was encouraging to see many new faces at a northern meeting.

Of those who appeared in the results back in 1976, Frankie Fitzsimons and Jimmy McBride were both on-course again 40 years later. Ann Ferris and Alfie Buller were other names to feature on the card back in 1976.

Looking back to 1971, the great Skymas ran at Portrush in a three-race career between the flags. He made his debut at the South Tyrone meeting in February as a five-year-old followed by an outing at Taylorstown on March 14th, before making his final appearance at Portrush in the Novice Christie race won by Jack Bamber’s Beggar Man ridden by Leonard Cave.

As limited results exist from the 1970s, it merely records the fact that Skymas participated but did not complete on any occasion. The story on Saturday being that he ran out into the car park twice before being pulled-up in his final appearance.

His career of course changed dramatically as he won back-to-back Champion Chases in 1975 and 1976 when trained by Brian Lusk and owned by Matt Magee, winning those two championship races aged 11 and 12 under Mouse Morris and he remains one of the most talented horses to have been trained in Northern Ireland throughout his entire career.

Down Royal racecourse manager Mike Todd is a grandson of Magee who owned this prolific 24 time-winner, who died at the ripe old age of 32, and his achievements are now recognised by the running of the Skymas Chase at the Down Royal festival of racing, a race won last year by Ptit Zig and in 2014 by Don Cossack.

Strong start to Logan-Murphy partnership

Last Saturday’s very impressive Portrush four-year-old maiden winner Finian’s Oscar marked a first winner trained by Denis Murphy to carry the colours of Edelle Logan.

Edelle, her husband Joey, a well-known point-to-point enthusiast and Dubliner Alan Harte are much-respected purchasers of horses, both within the point-to-pointing fields and of young stock, and they have had a number of leading track performers pass through their hands in recent times.

David Pipe’s Champers On Ice who finished third in last March’s Grade 1 Albert Bartlett Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, the Philip Hobbs-trained five-time winning 154-rated chaser Champagne West, and The Nephew, the winner of a $50,000 contest in America earlier this year, alongside multiple track winners Westend Star, Vasco Du Mee and Atlantic Gold, have all having carried their colours between the flags before embarking on their successful careers, whilst the subsequent listed chase runner-up Logans Run won a Punchestown Festival bumper for them before being sold on.

In previous seasons, the trio have kept their point-to-point horses in training at their own Tower View Stables in Kildare, with Fabian Burke and most recently former professional jumps jockey John Cullen, recruited to train their horses.

However, following the end of their partnership with Cullen last summer after one season, they have taken the decision to send their autumn point-to-pointers to Denis Murphy’s Wexford yard in a move which has already proved successful.

“We have eight with Denis (Murphy) for the autumn, and there are another six well-bred three-year-olds by the likes of Oscar and Robin Des Champs who will go down to him in December ahead of the spring.

“Denis is a gentleman and one of the best in the business,” remarked Joey Logan on their decision to send the point-to-point horses to Murphy, with the pre-training and younger stock to remain at their Tower View stables.

“We currently have 24 horses in and 14 of them are yearlings that were bought with Alan (Harte) at Tattersalls. Some will go into training and the others will go to the sales as breeze-ups.”

Fennessy in

the wars

JOCKEY Ciaran Fennessy suffered a big blow to his attempts at retaining the southern title before action has even commenced on the Cork and Waterford circuit for the new season, as he now faces a prolonged absence from the saddle owing to an injury sustained at Rathcannon on Sunday.

The Fermoy native, a previous novice riders’ champion in 2011, was having his third ride of the season aboard the Louis Archdeacon-trained Lively Article in the Dave Clarkes Bar five-year-old geldings’ maiden when the pair came to grief four fences from home.

A graduate of the pony racing circuit, Fennessy broke his pelvis in two places in the fall. Speaking from his hospital bed at the mid-western regional hospital in Limerick mid-week, from where he is due to be transferred to a hospital in Dublin to have the injury operated on, he admitted that he would likely be out of action for four months.

It is a tough blow for Fennessy who was a very popular winner of the southern riders’ title last season, when he finished the campaign with 26 winners, matching his previous season’s best of 12 months previously.

That achievement also earned him the accolade of being named as the Fermoy Sportsman of the Year, an award he is due to receive at a gala event next month.