Diamond finally sparkles

LOCAL trainers John McConnell and Ger Lyons stole the show with doubles on the opening day of the Bellewstown July meeting last night.

McConnell, who trains little more than two miles from the track, triumphed with the previously consistent but luckless Rockview Diamond in the opening five-furlong two-year-old maiden and Black N Brew, which defied top-weight in a division of the www.citynorthhotel.com Handicap.

And Lyons, whose string has hit top form in recent weeks, provided Carrickmacross-based owner Sean Jones with his 50th winner when Red Army Blues got up on the line to win the sprint handicap before Dark Passion, in the same colours, landed a tidy gamble (7/2 to 7/4) in the mile two-year-old maiden.