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AIKMAN: successful graduate from Tristan Davidson's yard
photo: Grace Beresford

The Northern Area is the subject of the seventh and final installment of Hugh Condry's review of 2009/10.

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Finally the NORTHERN Area, which began earlier than usual with its first December fixture, the inaugural Northern Area Club meeting at Alnwick, which proved a resounding success, drawing a big crowd and 76 runners from an entry comprising only 85 different horses. Former selling plater Cat Six came from Shropshire to win a 2m4f Maiden and in March followed up over hurdles at Catterick and Wincanton.

The wintry weather hit hard in the North. Only one of four scheduled fixtures went ahead in January or February, the Jed Forest. The West Percy was abandoned while the College Valley and Tynedale cards were both put back a fortnight and attracted poor attendances on consecutive Sundays in March. In April the Morpeth and Dumfriesshire were both lost to waterlogging and the Braes of Derwent had to be called off after five of the seven races had been run due to unsafe conditions on a miserable wet day of near freezing temperatures. Nevertheless, things ended on a high note, with the Haydon's end-of-May fixture at Hexham drawing a course record total of 98 runners, 40 of them from Yorkshire. In all the 108 races at the 15 surviving meetings were contested by 919 runners for a healthy average of 8.5.

Cumbrian sheep farmer Tristan Davidson, 31, finally lifted the Area male Jockeys' Championship after finishing runner-up in the previous two seasons. He partnered a career-best 14 winners. Few can match Davidson's dedication. He is up at 3.20am every day bar Sunday so that he can complete a milk and paper round tour of local villages before returning to see to his horses and 200 sheep.

His stable star was the six-year-old ex-Irish Pointer Aikman, who galloped his rivals into submission in an Alnwick Maiden in December and completed a hat-trick at Dalston and Alnwick before being switched to James Ewart's NH yard at Langholm, from where, in May, Davidson steered him to another impressive success in a Perth bumper at 20-1. The offers for Steven Houliston's horse then became irresistible and, in a private deal, he changed hands for a six-figure sum to a client of Ewart's yard.

Before that Davidson had scored on Thunder Hawk in a Cartmel Hunter Chase to round off a memorable season in which his most prolific winner was Indian Print, a six-year-old Blueprint gelding owned and trained by Victor Thompson and qualified with the Percy. He became the first Northern horse since the legendary Flying Ace in 1985 to win seven in a row between the flags - the last seven of his 10 outings, beginning with a Restricted and ending with three Opens. This earned him the £500 prize as the Area's top horse as well as £1000 as the PPORA's champion young performer. Indian Print contributed to a record season for Thompson's Newton-by-the Sea yard, from which came 10 winners (all Davidson-partnered) and another 28 in the first four from 67 runners.

Kelly Bryson, 24, retained the Area Ladies' title for a third year, despite missing a month with a broken collarbone. She had a couple of armchair rides on Philippa Shirley-Beavan's exciting youngster Quotica de Poyans, including an impressive success in a Kelso Maiden Hunter Chase, before she sustained the injury in a Friars Haugh fall at the end of March with Buckstruther, with whom she had already won a Maiden and a Restricted and who, while she was sidelined, took an Intermediate under Michael Ennis.

Ennis, top local Novice last year, finished runner-up to Davidson for the local major award and was third National Novice thanks to a career-best 10 winners. His growing reputation was further enhanced in May with eye-catching victories on Marfleet (at Witton Castle), Barry The Cracker (Aspatria) and Rakerin Lad (Hexham).

Grant Cockburn, 17, another graduate from pony racing, booted home seven winners to land the Area Novice Championship and also shared the Wilkinson Sword Under 21 trophy with the West Country's James Best. Cockburn won six in a row on the Lucinda Russell-trained Quinder Spring, whose campaign began with a fall at Alnwick in December and ended, after the six wins, when unseating at odds-on for the Young Horse Champion Novice Hunter Chase at Perth in May won by Michael Smith with Scotch Warrior. At Musselburgh in July Cockburn collected his first success under Rules - on 50-1 outsider Ballade de la Mer in a 1m5f Amateur Handicap.

Hawick schoolboy Jamie Hamilton enjoyed a dream start when steering Waterford to victory at Mosshouses just two days after his 16th birthday. Another pony racing graduate, weighing in at a little over eight stone, he made it two wins from two rides on the same horse at the Border meeting. A couple of other promising Novices to get off the mark in 2010 were Danny Ockenden and Adam Nicol.

Other horses of note in the Area included High Five (under Novice rider Amie Waugh) and Briscoe Place (Nathan Moscrop) who recorded four wins apiece in Ladies and Mens Opens respectively, but Val Jackson's prolific winner Robbers Glen, though successful in Hunter Chases in February at Wetherby and Kelso, failed to reappear after finishing a never dangerous sixth in the Cheltenham Foxhunter. Special Portrait won twice between the flags and completed a hat-trick in the prestigious Heart of All England at Hexham where, ridden as usual by Will Kinsey, he prevailed over the Grimthorpe winner Poppy Day by a head. The six-year-old's owner-trainer Mark Hughes drives a bin lorry for Workington Council and leaves home at 5.15am each morning, returning to exercise his horses after finishing his shift at lunchtime.

Ardnaclancy finally reproduced his 2009 form on his preferred sounder surface with Hunter Chase wins at Cartmel and Hexham in the space of six days during Epsom Derby week. His trainer-rider Andrew Richardson also enjoyed himself under Rules in the same colours on David Carr's ex-pointer Coastley, who earned over £13,000 with two victories and three places over hurdles between March and June. Dystonia's Revenge, a real old-fashioned chasing type, and It Did Happen both got off the mark in style and should hold their own in better company in 2011, while Cool Vic, Edkay and Terracos Do Pinhal look set to lose their maiden tags soon after the new Northern campaign kicks off at Alnwick in December.

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