Bumper holiday crowds turned out for the two Easter weekend point-to-point meetings at which the Essex fixture hosted a most competitive days' racing at the aptly named High Easter.

Epping's Robin Gill took the hunt members race for the second year running on Aeolian, hard held for the First circuit till let loose two fences from home to beat Salmon Mead and Jenny Walker by a comfortable four lengths.

Commuter Country landed his fourth victory under jockey Alan Coe this season, taking the Confined race the hard way, disputing from the off and finally getting the better of the Andrew Sansome ridden Remilan.

Sansome, easily one of the ablest jockeys in East Anglia, made amends in Division One of the Maiden when scoring on Lord of The Rings at the expense of Bishop Stortfords' Alex Harvey on Foxies Lad.

Division Two went to Christian Ward-Thomas and Javelin Cool, the second part of a double on the day for Thaxted based Ward-Thomas, Dawn Alert having already graced the winners enclosure in the Mens Open.

A close fought Ladies Open went to Zoe Turner on the family owned and trained Dromin Leader, holding off the consistent challenge of Gi D'Angibau and Larry the Lamb.

Thaxted's Hannah Barnard would have been closer than third had the 14 year old Peanuts Pet jumped more fluently, but this evergreen campaigner is sure to add more silverware to the Barnard mantelpiece before this season is over.

Marks Tey on Easter Monday boasted the traditional holiday crowd but sadly, fewer runners than the excellent going deserved.

Perfect jumping ground gave Andrew Sansome an ideal opportunity to display his skills when scoring a hat-trick with Rathkeal (Maiden), Torus Spa (Confined), and Cill Churnain (Intermediate), all trained by Suffolk maestro David Turner.

Gi D'Angibau went one better than her Saturday performance when Cache Fleur obliged in the Ladies Open over Don't Tell the Wife and Ballyedward, while a poorly contested three runner Mens Open saw copper thistle walk away with his fifth victory of the season.

On Saturday the Essex and Suffolk host the last of the ever popular fixtures at Higham.

A six race card contains the usual high number of entries for what is sure to be an excellent days racing

First race is off at 2pm with an interval for the Grand National.

Over they go . . Cardinal Black (no. 6) leads the way in the Countrywide Assured Group Confined Hunts Race at High Easter's Essex Hunt Point-to-Point meeting on Saturday.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.