Cheltenham Gold Cup third Road To Riches made an impressive return to action when taking the featured Clonmel Oil Chase yesterday afternoon at Powerstown Park.

Yesterday afternoon should have seen the conclusion of the 2015 National Meeting at Powerstown Park, Clonmel, but the weather intervened and the third and final day of action had to be postponed.

"He’s the real article. You just don’t do that to a Corn na Feile winner here at Clonmel," was co-commentator Damien Lonergan’s summation of the third-round course in which Timber House annihilated kennel companion Serene Angel to earn a place in this afternoon’s quarter-finals of the Boylesports.com Coursing Derby at Powerstown Park.

Henry de Bromhead reports Sizing Europe to be none the worse the day after his disappointing run in the Clonmel Oil Chase.

Champagne Fever and Sizing Europe are two of the star names amongst 11 entries for the Clonmel Oil Chase next Thursday.

A dog run by the family of a former chief executive of the Irish Greyhound Board tested positive for two banned substances after its win at the Coursing Derby.

A former accountant with the Irish Coursing Club submitted “fictitious” mileage expenses worth €3,800 a year after striking an agreement with his former boss and the club’s former auditors, a tribunal has heard.

Kilcohan Park may have to take a backseat for a few days after Thomas The Tank, owned by Waterford racing manager Kathleen Lennon and trained by her father, Denis, was crowned the Boylesports Coursing Derby champion of 2013.

Up to 70 protesters attended a picket of the National Coursing meeting in Co Tipperary yesterday to voice their opposition to the sport at its biggest day of the year.

The decisive moments in the National Coursing Meeting in Clonmel will take place on Powerstown Park this afternoon but with two days completed, it already feels like a success for the Irish Coursing Club.

If it weren’t a dream, this weekend’s National Coursing Meeting could be a logistical nightmare for prolific trainer Ger Holian.

For 87 years they’ve been travelling to a green, mostly windswept corner of Co Tipperary for the highlight of their sporting year, and yesterday was no exception as up to 10,000 hardy annuals attended the National Coursing Meeting.

Greyhound folk will have their stamina tested to the limit in the coming week with some top class racing at tracks all over the country while the National Coursing Meeting will commence at Clonmel on Monday morning.

ANTI-coursing campaigners have vowed to continue their fight despite the likelihood of their only political allies being voted out of the Dáil.

UP to 25,000 visitors are expected to pour into Clonmel, Co Tipperary, this week for the biggest coursing event of the year but tomorrow they will be met by anti-blood sports protesters.

Micheal O Muircheartaigh obviously has high hopes for his new four-legged friend. Upon retiring from his GAA commentary role last September, the Irish Greyhound Board announced that they would present him with a greyhound and the dog was handed over at a function in Shelbourne Park yesterday afternoon.

ON the sort of windswept afternoon only a jump racing fan could endure, a horse owned by a Limerick farmer in partnership with a Kildare businessman made the headlines in Clonmel.

Last year’s Paddy Power Gold Cup winner Tranquil Sea heads a field of seven for the Clonmel Oil Chase at the Powerstown Park venue tomorrow.

IT WAS the biggest and best sporting event in Ireland not just yesterday but all week.

Protestors are due to gather outside Powerstown Park in Clonmel today, as the annual hare coursing festival gets underway.

It really has been the most amazing start to the greyhound year. First we had the freeze-up and no racing at Shelbourne Park and other venues for a full month. Now we have the situation that because of many of our leading dogs lack full fitness, a prestigious event such as the Joe Dunne Memorial Puppy Stake has had to be put back a week in order to attract sufficient entries.

POWERSTOWN Park punters, already reeling from a host of shock results in the classics, will this morning be greeted with the disappointing news that favourite Coolcastle Point (Trajectory-Wake Up Time), is a shock withdrawal from the Derby.

REPRESENTATIVES of animal protection groups will today protest at the finals of the national coursing meeting in Clonmel.

For those more used to the muck, mud, rain and cold of deep winter that normally accompanies their favourite sport, it was positively balmy in Clonmel yesterday for the first day of the 83rd running of the annual National Coursing Meeting.

THOUSANDS of fans from home and abroad gathered in a sporting venue for the top meeting of its kind, and not a prawn sandwich in sight. It must be the coursing.

ANTI-BLOOD sports campaigners are planning to mount protests at next month’s national coursing meeting in Clonmel for the first time in more than a decade.

Tipperary will become the Mecca for hare coursing fans during the next three days.

County Tipperary became the Mecca for hare coursing fans from around the world today as the 81st annual Irish meeting got under way.

Jimmy Woulfe

HISTORY was made at New Ross yesterday when two coursing Derby winners clashed in the final of An Corn Ros Mhic Treoin.

Tom Higgins

SLIEVENAMON looked a little pale, the air was somewhat chilly but the body that is Irish coursing is as fit and healthy as it has ever been.