Ever-popular presenter Luke Harvey took a day off from his regular duties with ITV and Sky Sports Racing to saddle Notre Pari at Paxford on Bank Holiday Monday and was all smiles after the nine-year-old reigned supreme in the featured Mixed Open.

 

Ridden with patience on the first circuit by Tom Broughton, the gelding made stealthy headway with a mile to negotiate before taking up the running three fences out and staying on well to comfortably fend off the attentions of Keep Moving.

 

Harvey said: "I have to thank JP McManus' British racing manager Sir Anthony McCoy for sorting things out with the horse when the decision was taken to retire him from racing under Rules and it could not have worked out better. This was the horse's third run for me and I could not not be more happy with the way it has all worked out as I was hopeful that his best trip could be two-and-a-half miles, so this race had been on my radar for a while."

 

He added: "I am not one of those owner/trainers who think my horses are this and my horses are that, but winning with one of them is the best feeling in the world. I am so pleased for the horse and for my wife Charlotte who does much of the work with him at home."

 

Zac Baker took the riding honours at the meeting for the second consecutive year after victories aboard Chenery, who turned over hot favourite Tara Storm in the opening Members Race and the Francesca Poste-trained For Rita in the Conditions contest for Mares and Fillies.

 

Tara Storm had notched an impressive hat-trick of wins in recent months and once again tried to dominate proceedings but he was a spent force at the end of the back straight and proved no match for the Harry Stock-owned and trained Chenery.

 

Stock commented: "The mare has won on soft and heavy ground so I knew she would handle the conditions and I told Zac to track the favourite and take it from there. He has given her a great ride tactically."

 

For Rita and Miss May Hill were involved in a game of cat and mouse for much of the Conditions race with the latter content to force the pace which played into the hands of Baker as he and his mount eventually pounced and came well clear.

 

Poste's husband Charlie said: "It obviously was not much of a race but she deserved to win another as she struggles in Open company these days and this looked too good an opportunity to pass up."

 

Amber Jackson-Fennell has her sights set on the Ladies Novice Riders title and she was on the mark again when Queen Kalamba took the Maiden for 5yo and over in pleasing style from Queenhill.

 

This performance was a step up on what the winner had achieved in the past and Jackson-Fennell explained: "She had a wind operation earlier this year and it has obviously helped her as she kept galloping in the soft ground."

 

The rider added: "I will be going all out for the couple of months or so that are left of the season to win the Ladies Novices title as myself and Molly Landau are having something of a tussle for it."

 

It has proved a character building three years for trainer Jo Davis but she finally found herself standing the winner's circle again after It's For Alan took the hours in the concluding Veteran Conditions race. Not only did the 10-year-old provide rider Kendal Dickinson, who works for Davis, with her first career winner in the saddle when showing too much resolution in the closing stages for favourite Waterloo Warrior.

 

Davis said: "It's been a hard few years without a winner as we have had a number of injuries and when you are just a small trainer it is so hard to replace horses. This may have only been a point winner but I will happily take it with both hands after the time that we have had."

 

Punters who follow the old adage about the outsider of three runners were rewarded with a 3-1 winner after Rizzardo proved the answer to the Novice Riders' Conditions race when seeing off Master Sunrise in the hands of Verity Taylor.