Big drama at Castletown Geoghegan meeting

The opening race at the Castletown Geoghegan Point to Point on Sunday, October 5, saw an incident-packed first race in which local trainer Adrian Murray had to settle for second place.

The Derek O'Connor trained and ridden Jaycee Reidy got up to score in what was an incident-packed finish, with Murray’s horse, Jurassic Bob forced to settle for second position having led after clearing the last obstacle. The winner is a son of Walk In The Park, out of a seven-time winning dam, was ridden in rear and showed a sharp turn-of-foot when making smooth progress through the field in the final circuit and surged to the line to score by a length-and-a-half. Jurassic Bob’s jockey completed the race reinless. The winner will now be offered for sale.

The major drama took palace at the final fence with a couple of fallers (to the left of the above photograph) and another horse badly stumbling which left the jockey with no reins to complete the course.

Castletown Geoghegan has been a mainstay of the point-to-point scene in the midlands for four decades and is home to the Barbour Cup, one of the most prestigious races on the calendar which has a very rich history.

A left-handed course featuring five fences, the horses spend much of the race on the turn. Beginning at the new starting point which was relocated before the winning post in autumn 2018, the runners are quickly into the bend out of the home straight, and there is a fair run on the level before the runners arrive at the first fence. There is a further run away from the home straight which brings them over the second, after which they bare slightly left-handed into the back straight proper.

The runners begin to climb ever so slightly on the run to fence three and then turn once again and begin the steeper ascent to the top of the hill. Before they reach the top of the climb, they will jump fence four at the highest point of the course.

They shortly meet the final left-handed bend, which begins quite a notable downhill run into a dip early in the home straight. Before reaching the one and only fence in the home straight, which also acts as the final obstacle on the third circuit, there is a rise, but the climb is significantly less than the previous descent. Following the last, there is a short run-in to the line.

Wexford jockey Barry O’Neill gave this guide to the course: “Castletown Geoghegan is quite a fair track because if they go too quick around there, which they often can, they would come back to you on the run up the hill to the second-last fence.

“It always rides very well, and the hunt do a great job producing safe ground at all of their race meetings.”