A GLORIOUS sunny Easter Saturday attracted a huge crowd to Larkhill to enjoy the final point-to-point meeting of the season, the South and West Wilts and all of the attractions that the hunt had arranged.

A lot of hard work had been put in on the ground before the meeting in the absence of any significant rain and this did provide some ease to the surface although the horses that relished a sound surface did prove to be the ones to follow on the day.

Two riders will remember their day under different circumstances when they rode their first winners, one regular participant made his final appearance a winning one and there were a number of familiar horses taking up the challenge of the charity flat race which preceded the point-to-point races.

The two open races, were both matches but the ladies’ race did have three horses declared to run, with the prolific Coco Live a very short price to record his fifth victory of the season.

The gelding was asked to trot up by the vet in the paddock and was determined not fit enough to participate in the race.

This left Tiger Sam and Blue Benny ridden by Heidi Stevens and Hollie Greene respectively to battle it out and they produced the closest finish of the day when Tiger Sam won by half a length.

Stevens, 23, who works for Laura was recording her first career victory from only six rides having previously enjoyed some success in eventing up to B level.

The Men’s Open turned into a procession with Dandan ridden by Tristan Durrell, beating Country Legend ridden by Tom Bishop by a distance.

Adrenalin Flight was another to secure a second course victory this season, when winning the novice riders race when ridden by Matt Fielding.

Trained locally to the course by Sally Rawlins at Figheldean for National Hunt trainer Seamus Mullins he had eight lengths to spare over main rival Benemeade ridden by Nathan Rahman.

Rahman had previously secured his second career victory in the previous race, when he partnered the mare Tangoed to a very easy victory in the Restricted race.

The Open Maiden race was won by another mare, Starweld who beat her only rival Colin’s Hero by eight lengths.

The second rider who rode his first career winner was Tom Doggrell, 18 aboard Trueflyingcolours in the Hunt race but he had no rivals and walked over to record his triumph.

Bedrock Fred registered his fifth career victory at Larkhill, when winning the Confined race under rider Sam Burton for owner El Tanner.

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