THE local point-to-point scene received another bodyblow on Wednesday with the announcement that the two-day Fermanagh fixture, which most, but apparently not all, had expected to take place on Friday and Saturday, May 13th and 14th, has been cancelled “due to operational reasons”.

Coming on the back of the cancellations of the North Down meeting at Kirkistown (March 12th), the Co Downs’ fixture at Loughbrickland (March 19th) and today’s point-to-point at Moira, it means owners and trainers in the region are going to have to travel further to get runs into their horses while there will be added pressure on those fixtures still set to go ahead in the region.

Thankfully, the Route Hunt ran a very successful meeting in glorious sunshine last Saturday outside Portrush where five of the seven races were won by locally-trained horses, three of those winners were partnered by northern-born riders and one of them, the four-year-old maiden winner, King Of Kingsfield, was home-bred.

The bay gelding, who made all the running to win by a distance under Deckie Lavery, is trained in Downpatrick for his wife Mary by Patrick Turley whose father Pat bred the son of Vadamos out of the winning Medicean mare Passion Planet.

The latter is a half-sister to, among others, the Group 2 winners Nearly Caught (by New Approach) and Pale Mimosa (by Singspiel).

Think a lot

Saturday’s winner is the fourth of five foals out of his dam (the second being the dual flat winner Almarr, by Dandy Man), and connections must think a lot of the horse to name him after their home and their renowned haylage business.

That four-year-old maiden was, of course, sponsored by Dennison Commercials and while disappointed that his own newcomer, Ballymackie, had to settle for second under Noel McParlan, owner Wilson Dennison later saw his colours carried to victory twice during the afternoon.

He had a one-two in the second division of the Gormley Pharmacy and Tattersalls NH five-year-old geldings’ maiden where his Jamie Sloan-trained Shirocco bay Abbeyhill, who has having his second start, won by 13 lengths from his James Lambe-trained Of Corse I Can.

In the JKC Specialist Cars older geldings’ maiden for novice riders where he was having his fourth run, Dennison’s Colin McKeever-trained Saddler Maker grey Grave La Klass scored by a short-head under Cormac Abernethy.

Newcomer

For good measure, the owner’s newcomer Townhill won the four-year-old maiden at Loughrea on Sunday for the Sam Curling yard.

Back to Portrush where the Crawford brothers, Stuart and Ben, combined to win division one of that five-year-old geldings’ maiden with Roy Wilson’s Harjo who failed to progress past the first fence on his only previous start at Farmacaffley.

The well-related Yeats bay is due to come up as Lot 6 at next Thursday’s Goffs UK’s Aintree Sale where Townhill will come under the hammer as Lot 3 and Abbeyhill as Lot 24.

After his run of ‘seconditis’, it was good to see Derrylin trainer David Christie land the Kellys Portrush open with John Hegarty and Jennifer O’Kane’s Vaucelet who was also on the mark here last October.