THE Cartmel Races proved an exciting competition for trainers from all around the country, with a number of surprising results ensuring that the event remained exciting as ever.

Milkman and trainer Tristan Davidson went from delivering dairy in the early hours to pulling winners out of the hat by mid-afternoon on a day to remember at Cartmel.

The Cumbrian trainer had been awake 12 hours by the time he produced a first career double, stealing the limelight from a first winner of the year at the track for Cartmel trainer James Moffatt.

Davidson had never had a winner at the course before. He put that right with two from two in the first two races.

The 39-year-old has only three summer jumps horses in his stable – plus eight who will come in for the autumn and winter – but both Rubenesque and Justatenner showed that it is quality not quantity that counts in the south of the county.

Davidson claimed his first Cartmel winner with Rubenesque in the opening Harrogate Spring Water Maiden Hurdle.

Half-an-hour later, Davidson was back in the same place, celebrating a quick-fire double as Justatenner did the business as well in the E-Catering Handicap Hurdle over the same distance.

Davidson said: “It’s my first winner here. It’s good to win anywhere – it’s nice to get a winner here; I’d like to get a winner everywhere up north and I’ve ticked the box now, which is grand.

“She’s a good mare and she wants a trip,” he said after the success over 2m 6f on Good to Firm ground. “She’d even go to three miles. She’s a battler – we’ve only had her a month and we’ve done a lot of jumping at home. She’s very useful.”

It looked like being a blank day for Moffatt, but he finally claimed the win he craved from the most unlikely of sources.

Golden Town has been placed time after time for the Cartmel handler, but he finally broke his duck after 19 attempts in the Innes Reid Investments Novices’ Handicap Hurdle.

Champion jockey Richard Johnson added another Cartmel win to his tally with 7/4 favourite Martha’s Benefit in the Cartmel Old Grammar County Hotel Handicap Chase.