CHIPPING Norton trainer Charlie Longsdon had double cause to celebrate after emerging from a barren six-week spell.

The master of Hull Farm stables clocked up his half-century of winners for the term and also broke through the £500,000 prize-money barrier in a season for the first time in his ten-year career.

Cadoudoff’s victory at Huntingdon on Friday ended the drought, and Argot ‘s success at Uttoxeter a day later was winner No 50.

But it was the gallant efforts by Ballydine and Coologue in finishing second at Doncaster on the same afternoon which saw him achieve the prize-money landmark – with three months of the season left.

Longsdon said he had not been concerned about his lean spell after Cadoudoff survived a last-fence blunder to record his first win in this country with an eight-lengths triumph over Special Agent in a handicap chase over two and a half miles under Tom O’Brien.

“I’ve not been fussed at all,” he commented. “Everything has had a break and they are all waiting for good ground.

“It’s not as if they’ve been pulled up or tailed off. They don’t like the ground.”

Argot dug deep for his success, holding off Just So Cool by a head in a two-mile handicap hurdle under an inspired ride by Graham Watters.

Meanwhile, Ballydine and Coologue shone in defeat on Town Moor.

Ballydine made the unbeaten Barters Hill pull out all the stops before going down by three-quarters of a length in the Grade 2 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle.

And Coologue produced a career-best effort in being beaten three-and-a-quarter lengths by Ziga Boy in the Sky Bet Chase.

The improving seven-year-old could now return to Doncaster for the Grimthorpe Chase next month or head for a handicap at the Cheltenham Festival.