Small fields in valuable contestsbeggar belief
What’s gone on over the last week or so has simply beggared belief and you really do wonder at times about this game.
At Fairyhouse last Saturday, for instance, a Grade Two juvenile hurdle could only attract a paltry three runners.
The winner, the Alan Fleming-trained French-import Gwencily Berbas scored in a canter to take home a decent purse in excess of €27,000.
It was simply an oh-so-boring farce, with the remote second grabbing almost €8,000 and the even more remote third a little under €4,000.
Then Naas on Sunday housed another joke race, a two-horse bumper. Gigginstown was originally due to be doubly represented, but then one of their representatives, Tombstone, was taken out with a stone bruise. What a surprise that was!
But surely the biggest disappointment of all was the pathetic response by trainers to Thursday’s Grade Two Michael Purcell Novice Hurdle at Thurles.
The Tipperary track is famous for rarely losing a meeting and provides a terrific service to National Hunt racing through the winter months.
This Grade Two was a €40,000 heat, with the winner landing a not inconsiderable €26,000.
The entry was very strong, a more than satisfactory 20. But then look at what happened on Wednesday morning, as a whopping 14 declined the engagement.
Basically, literally all of the horses you would have been looking forward to seeing were taken out of the contest.
Now we are obviously aware that Cheltenham is just around the corner, but of the 14 that went missing only Mouse Morris’ Alpha Des Obeaux could be regarded as any sort of live candidate for the Festival.
Of the six horses that remained in the race, two of them were trained by Willie Mullins and two more by Sandra Hughes.
At least the champion trainer and Ms Hughes, as well as David McGrath and Paul Nolan, were alive to the fact there was a more than decent opportunity on offer.
The race was won by the well-exposed Hughes-trained Sub Lieutenant, in what was a Grade Two in name only.
Thurles, and indeed Fairyhouse and Naas last weekend, certainly deserved a lot better.
When first reading about a bypass running through, or near, to Galway racecourse, thus raising the possibility that one of the greatest festivals on earth would disappear for two years, I immediately checked to see if it was April 1. Unbelievably it wasn’t and this is apparently a runner.
Galway Co Council is seemingly entertaining the notion of six possible routes for a new road and all will impact, in one way or another, on Galway racecourse.
An EU directive appears to be the driving force and, given the history of this so-called independent state of late, having our tummies stroked as we do what we’re told is more than a possibility.
Destroying Galway racecourse and preventing the festival going ahead for any period of time is the end of civilisation as we know it.
An exaggeration, yes, but who could, in their right mind, contemplate building a road through say the likes of Croke Park, Thomond Park or Pairc Ui Chaoimh?
Galway races are part of what we are and the notion of interfering with it in any way is just nuts.
The EU should be told where to shove their directive. If Irish politicians haven’t the balls to do so then maybe they could give that Greek lad a ring!
It was probably a less-than-edifying spectacle, but I have to admit to getting a great kick out of a story that emerged from Kempton racecourse last Saturday.
It seems that in late afternoon, around the time when a fair amount of drink was likely to have kicked in, a naked male racegoer climbed onto the Desert Orchid statue and posed for photographs, before being escorted from the track. Now, now, behave yourself and stop laughing.
On a Question Of Sport recently Phil Tufnell’s team was shown six personalities and asked to identify as many of them as they could.
They managed to find four and failed on two, one of whom was Ruby Walsh. Now, doesn’t that tell you all you need to know about the popularity of horse racing, outside of its narrow confines?
And speaking of Walsh, he answered numerous questions, along with Ronan O’Gara, at yesterday’s Irish Examiner Breakfast Morning at the Clarion Hotel in Cork City.
My favourite among Walsh’s responses was when I queried him as to the best place in the world he has visited?
His reply, I thought, was a classic: “The winner’s enclosure at Cheltenham.’’
