No Cheltenham luck for Irish at races or fashion

The Irish spent the second day at the Cheltenham Festival struggling to make up ground on the locals who claimed five of the seven races and it was a case of much the same off the track on Ladies Day.

With the sun shining and the temperatures climbing up towards the mid-teens there was even more than the usual supply of fake tan and feathers on show and the prize for best dressed went to an entrant who knows these parts better than most.

Camille Henderson, daughter of Nicky Henderson who is trainer to the Queen, was deemed to be the most sartorially savvy of the female punters with a dress purchased from Next, a fur found in a cupboard and a hat made by a friend.

The bag she splashed out on.

A Mulberry, by all accounts.

Henderson, a sports and performance consultant, was understandably chuffed with the win which came just weeks after the amateur jockey suffered a fall in a point-to-point race which almost broke her nose.

Second spot went to Elaine Waterworth of Newry, Co Down, for her green woollen dress and a hat that required a bit of last-ditch alteration before it could be flaunted around a Prestbury Park that was again packed to the rafters.

“I had to glue the feather on this morning on the bus at 9am because it didn’t fit on the plane,” said Waterworth, whose day job as a florist must have come in handy when it came to re-arranging her bonnet.

It was a day that threw up the usual cross-section of English society with everyone from Camilla-Parker Bowles and Zara Philips to Katie Price donning their glad rags to take in the latest edition of the equine party.

For the men, two-tone shoes and tweed suits were again the order of the day which started well for the thousands of Irish punters when Ruby Walsh came home first in the day’s opener on board the Willie Mullins-trained Faugheen.

Another four hours and five races passed before the visitors could celebrate another success though, with amateur Robbie McNamara claiming his first ever festival winner on trainer Dermot Weld’s Silver Concorde in the Bumper.

Day three has earned a reputation as the least attractive of the quartet since the festival stretched its legs to a fourth day, but the Irish contingent will hope that its designation as the St Patrick’s Day proves to be a lucky omen.

It’s probably best not to bet on it, though.