Dreams of a triple crown set pulses racing on Stateside

Just over a decade after Cavan’s footballers beat Kerry to win the 1947 All-Ireland final in Manhattan’s Polo Grounds, a horse called Cavan won the Belmont Stakes in Long Island.

Both Cavans were knocking high-profile opponents off their pedestals and both achievements were groundbreaking in their own way.

The four-legged Cavan, ridden by Pete Anderson, spoiled Tim Tam’s bid for US horseracing’s Triple Crown in 1958 to become the first of only two Irish-born thoroughbreds to win the Belmont.