Noel Fehily records double win at Southwell Racecourse

Southwell were racing over the jumps on Monday afternoon on very testing ground, but that didn’t stop jockey Noel Fehily from riding a double on the card from his only two rides and moving onto 111 winners for the season, a clear personal best.

His first victory came on Neil Mulholland’s progressive mare Barton Rose, who was well backed on her last start at Plumpton where she won well, and she followed up here despite carrying twelve stone two pounds. He then doubled up on the locally trained My Oh Mount Brown, a horse who was having his first start for Alan McCabe and won really nicely after travelling powerfully throughout.

Fehily is right on the tails of Richard Johnson and Jason Maguire in the race for second place in the jockey’s championship behind AP McCoy, who unsurprisingly is a long way clear.

The first race on the card went the way of Lord Navits, who was completing a hat trick of wins since joining David Bridgwater after previous easy victories at Leicester and Bangor-On-Dee, all ridden by Alain Cawley. He won well again here from the front and remains a well handicapped horse.

Our feature contest went to Caroline Bailey for the second consecutive year with jockey Andrew Thornton, still closing in on that 1000 winner mark for his career, as Galway Jack was left to pick up the prize as Green Wizard fell at the last.

The Pogsons were amongst the winners too, as Wordy’s Boy made all for Charles Pogson and ridden by son Adam, landing a bit of a touch in the process and the easiest winner on the card by some distance was Celtic Agent in the closing bumper, who won by a hard held twelve lengths under young conditional Adam Nicol.

The Cheltenham Festival starts next week, and although the likes of Sprinter Sacre and Cue Card are missing, there is a mouthwatering clash to look forward to on the Thursday as Big Buck’s takes on Annie Power, with Willie Mullins’ unbeaten mare receiving seven pounds mares allowance as well.

You can view every race from Cheltenham at Southwell Racecourse when we are racing on both Tuesday 11th and Wednesday 12th.