Mullingar jockey rides two winners in a week

(Above) Mullingar rider Simon Cavanagh.

Mullingar amateur rider Simon Cavanagh rode his first bumper winner when partnering Il Courra to win the finale at Wexford on Bank Holiday Monday. The 6/1 chance, trained by Cormac Farrell, got the better of the Noel Meade-trained 4/7 favourite Idas Boy by three-parts of a length and the successful rider commented, “I was second on him the last day in Kilbeggan. He just got touched off there by a decent mare of Gordon Elliott's. He is after improving now because that ground wouldn't have really suited him. He is tough, he is genuine and he keeps trying for you.

“I'd say he will go for a maiden hurdle now and I'd say his owners will hold on to him as they bred him. That's my sixth winner on the track and my first actual bumper winner. I work with Denis Murphy in Wexford and do a bit for Cormac (Farrell) as well. It's good to get on these good horses.”

Cavanagh rode a second winner when partnering the John Joe Walsh-trained Live Every Day to land the 2m4f amateur riders’ handicap hurdle at Clonmel on Thursday. Owned and bred by the rider’s father Richard, he got the 16/1 chance home by a neck from the Tom Taaffe-trained Resurrected Duke, the 11/4 favourite.

Dillon Maxwell was among the winners at Down Royal on Friday. On a day of runaway winners, he partnered the Matthew Smith-trained Ragin Cajun to an eight-length success in the 3m handicap hurdle. The 9/1 chance went clear after final hurdle to beat Garry McGill’s Electricitywork. Dot Love captured the 2m handicap chase with her fine servant Bridge Native. She was yet another to win by eight lengths, the 3/1 favourite beating Henry De Bromhead’s Email Rose under Conor Orr in the colours of the Real Bandits Again Syndicate.