GOOD old Barney Curley didn’t half liven up the scene with those well-publicised gambles in England on Monday.

TRAINER, Eoin Griffin, has seen little go his way over many months, but there are signs of an upswing in fortunes and his Norther Bay can keep the current modest momentum going in the Mallow Town Summer BBQ Race Evening Beginners Chase at Cork tonight.

THERE are times when you really wonder what the race-planners are at in this country?

ANDREW LYNCH was positively brilliant when guiding French-import Kotkidy to victory in the Irish Stallion Farms’ EBF Beginners Chase atKillarney last night.

IF Aidan O’Brien can get St Nicholas Abbey to win the Epsom Derby on June 4 then he can surely be mentioned in the same breath as Merlin - and we all know what his profession was.

THERE may be only four runners in tomorrow’s Group 2 Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial at Leopardstown, but this does look a tricky little contest.

KEVIN Prendergast’s Faranadooney can oblige at the third time of asking in the Ingard Point Maiden at Wexford this evening.

JOHN KIELY’S Oneeightofamile, whose previous claim to fame was winning a Dundalk bumper, could hardly have been more impressive in the Lynch and Partners’ (Solicitors) Maiden at Clonmel last night.

AIDAN O’BRIEN, who doesn’t send too many horses to Clonmel, could provide a winning nap in the shape of Great Wisdom in the featured 2010 SEPAM Tipperary Perpetual Cup Handicap at the track tonight.

LAST Saturday morning, I got a phone call from well-known racing photographer, Pat Healy, asking if I’d read page 24 of the Racing Post.