DISPATCHES FROM THE SOUTH AND WEST MIDLANDS: 21 AND 22 MARCH

A – to date – season-high eight meetings took place last weekend, and South Midlands and West Mercian participants took full advantage, getting on the scoresheet at least once at all the fixtures, from Overton in Lanarkshire to Kilworthy, on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon.

Henry Crow, no doubt still buzzing after his Cheltenham Foxhunters triumph, made the long journey to Overton from his Shropshire base and came back with a double thanks to Phantoms Cave and Eagles Rock, two locally trained horses. Then on the Sunday, he went to Dalton Park near Beverley in Yorkshire and won on Rhiannon Lodge’s progressive Fayrely Fruitful and Tim Garton’s Poncherello. Crow has now had seven winners from his last nine rides.

Henry Crow (right) winning on Fayrely Fruitful (Tom Milburn)

Gina Andrews went one better than Crow, both training and riding five winners at the weekend. At Garthorpe in Leicestershire, she won on Master Templar, dead-heated on Fumet D’Oudairies with Charlie Case (riding Sambezi) and trained Young Rich, who gave Molly Legg a second victory of the season. Also at Garthorpe, Laura Horsfall’s Maxfly D’Agrostis broke his duck. Then at Norfolk track Fakenham on Sunday, Andrews rode three more winners. She trains Cheytac and No Risk Des Flos herself and won again on the East Anglian-trained Aramax. Ellie Holder got in on the winning act, scoring for the first time since December on Il Padrino.

Gina Andrews and Master Templar (Neale Blackburn)

Ed Doggrell was another jockey to taste success on both Saturday and Sunday. He travelled to the Wessex fixtures at Milborne St Andrew in Dorset, winning on Go Sacre Go, then had a double at Somerset venue Ston Easton on Sunday with Duc De Bourbon and Far Out West. At the latter meeting, Lucy Pickford got off the mark as both trainer and jockey in her seventh season with Paint The Dream, Martin Wanless trained his first winner of the season with Emotional Roller and the powerful Luca Morgan-James King combination teamed up to take the Maiden with Jewel Of Wisdom.

Lucy Pickford wins on Paint The Dream (Tim Holt)

Siddington is Britain’s oldest point-to-point course, and the Gloucestershire track hosted the third South Midlands Area meeting of the season on Saturday. Locally qualified horses took full advantage, going through the card. Bradley Gibbs was the chief beneficiary, having a training and riding double with Bluescape (Restricted) and Askafrontman (2m4f Maiden), while trainers James Luck – with Slipway in the Novice Riders Race, ridden by Molly Armytage – and Jo Lang, with Jeu De Pic and Albi Tufnell in the 3m Maiden, had their first wins. Chris Clarke’s Calidad took the Adjacent Hunts Race and Kilfilum Woods scored impressively under Clara Brewitt for Francesca Poste in the Mixed Open.

Clara Brewitt on Kilfilum Woods (Graham Fisher)

Read the full report of Saturday’s action from Siddington, including interviews with all the winning connections, here.

On the Sunday, Poste’s Short Sell took the Maiden at Dalton Park and – rounding off the weekend’s action, Chris Barber sent debutante Farm Assured down to Kilworthy to win the Mares Maiden.