Evanna McCutcheon has built up a tremendous rapport with her own horse Long Strand of late and the pair recorded their fifth success of the season in the open lightweight at the North Kerry Harriers point-to-point fixture outside Ballybunion on Saturday.

It may have well happened that those in attendance at yesterday’s Muskerry Foxhounds point-to-point meeting at Birch Hill witnessed the successful debut of a potential top-notch performer for Eugene O’Sullivan’s Shanahan’s Turn left many racegoers searching for previously unused superlatives following his stunning victory in the first division of the five-year-old geldings’ maiden.

The 2012/13 point-to-point season got under way at Rathcannon on Saturday with the County Limerick Hunt’s Bruff meeting and Tyrone Golden Rain lit up the meeting for many by destroying the opposition in the eight-runner open lightweight.