Codd heaps pressure on O’Neill POINT-TO-POINT

JAMIE CODD won his second national riders’ championship last year after a valiant chase by Barry O’Neill, and the two of them are battling it out again this season.

Codd made a giant move forward at the weekend with five winners in two days, moving to the 34 mark, four behind table-topper O’Neill who just got one. Derek O’Connor had two winners and is third on 30.

The Co. Down Staghounds staged their meeting on Saturday.

Jamie Codd competed in the first four races before departing for Bumper duty at Navan and had two winners and two seconds.

The wins were in the five- and six-year-old mares’ maiden where the consistent Little Millie got a deserved success, and in the Open on the Jim Dreaper-trained second favourite, Cavite Beta.

There was a strong Wexford contingent at the Westmeath Foxhounds meet at Castletowngeoghegan on Sunday, with Jamie Codd scoring a treble.

There were a couple of unusual incidents as well, with just two runners in one race and a single finisher in another.

Codd won snugly as Didarro scored a third successive win for Athlone’s Brian Dillon against just the one rival in the adjacent hunt winners’ race, and it was just as easy on Sticker Hill for Laois trainer, Willie Lanigan, in the older mares’ maiden.

Codd was on top again in the Open Barbour Cup race on Minella for Value for Declan Queally from Waterford who is having a marvellous season to date and is joint leader of the handlers’ table with Colin Bowe on 15 winners.

There were just four runners in the opening four-year-old maiden and just one finished - Overworkdunderpaid (Getaway-Another Whiparound), was still a welcome winner for Barry O’Neill and Colin Bowe. Codd was brought down on Gordon Elliott’s Donjon.

At Ballynoe in Cork, trainer Michael Goff (Clondaw, Ferns) and his stable jockey Shane Fitzgerald kept the Wexford flag flying with their second win in three weekends, this time with Clondaw Native (Golan-Great Outlook) in the five-year-old geldings’ maiden.

Derek O’Connor denied the Wexford raiders in the opening four-year-old maiden on Pat Doyle’s (Nenagh) Stay Humble, with Jimmy O’Rourke second of 13 runners on Donnchadh Doyle’s Locker Room Talk, and Rob James third on Colin Bowe’s Eur Gone West.

The Island Hunt stage the last local meeting of the season at Ounavarragh, Courtown, on Sunday, starting with the four-year-old maiden at 2 p.m., with the last off at 4.30 p.m.

They also race at Dromahane, Cork, and Belclare in north Galway on Sunday, and at Inch, Co. Cork, on Wednesday, April 12.