Unfancied Fortuna favours the brave

Seventh heaven how are ye!

Paradise needed several extra tiers to accommodate the soaring delight of Mrs. Brigid Frank after yesterday’s win by her unheralded bitch Fortuna in the Hotel Minella Oaks, one of coursing’s two greatest annual prizes.

“A fairytale!” she gasped, caught in that happy semi-hysteric place between tears and laughter, “I’m over the moon! I thought this would never, ever happen. I’ve been coming here for years, and I was happy just to have a qualifier, but I never thought, never in my wildest dreams, that I’d actually win the Oaks. But her name has a lot to do with that as well — Fortuna, the Goddess of Fortune!” Ah yes, little Miss Fortuna, and now too of course, Mrs. Fortune, because as Fortuna flew atop the muck and the mud on the hill of Clonmel, she was earning for Brigid, and for the two other co-owners, the princessly sum of €35,000, plus of course the bonus of all those future pups.

Not that mere money was anywhere in Brigid’s thoughts through the three drama-filled days of Clonmel this year. This was romance, this was real-life theatre, this was sporting spectacle at its most thrilling, and as every day passed, as every course was successfully negotiated by Fortuna, Brigid became a familiar figure to the crowd, her effervescent urgings at the top of the course echoing around the stands, her whooping foray onto the field after each successive win to catch her beautiful black bitch becoming something of a hallmark of this year’s event. “I wouldn’t mind,” added Brigid, “But I always come here dressed up to the nines — I had a most beautiful hat ready for today, with flying feathers. This is the first time I was ever here in this sort of the gear (practical working-woman’s coursing clothes) — I could stay in it forever the way I’m going!” And she throws her head back, laughs the heartiest of laughs — “Unreal!”

Magic, mystical, this was coursing at its very best, a triumph for the underdog, a day for the dreamer. “This has really changed our luck,” said Dr Paul Nolan, one of Fortuna’s co-owners, along with Donie Reidy; “We haven’t had any kind of a winner for 10 years! We’re buying dogs every year, and this year we got one that got us to Clonmel. We didn’t think a whole lot of her chances, to be honest, but we did all back her the first morning, a tenner each at 100/1 — just a tenner, so she wasn’t friendless! But this is a lifetime’s ambition, fulfilled at last.”

In the Derby, another lifetime’s ambition fulfilled. At the end of a thrilling three days, favourites rising and falling by the hour, Kingsmill Dynamo finally proved best of the dog pups, came storming home just ahead of the gallant Colina Damask. Even before the semi-final, however, Dynamo’s catcher, Wexford-man Eugene McCabe, a cousin of owner/trainer Aidan Roche, had confided his confidence to a couple of us within earshot — sorry we are now that we didn’t head to the bookies’ ring to invest in that confidence!

Just like Brigid, Eugene could barely contain his emotion. “I’m in the dogs for over 30 years — this is every dog person’s dream, to win the Derby. And I had faith in this fella; I said to Aidan, ‘He’ll do the business!’” The irony of that win though is that while Kingsmill was indeed expected to do well in Clonmel, was actually heavily backed to win the big one on day three, it wasn’t Kingsmill Dynamo but his stablemate, Kingsmill Bliss, in the Oaks.

Bliss had been putting up blistering times, was said to be a full three or four lengths faster in training than her stablemate, but she had been eliminated on the afternoon of the second day by Ballymore Trick. Well, in Clonmel yesterday, in four finals before the big two at the end of the day’s coursing, there were consolation Stakes for those dogs and bitches beaten in the first round, but lads, there’s consolation, and there’s CONSOLATION — 35,000 yo-yos, plus the few bob to be picked up in stud fees, down the road? Not bad.

Two of those earlier four consolation prizes were picked up by the Pat Curtin kennels, and while it didn’t match what Aidan Roche picked up, it still gave great satisfaction to Rachel Wheeler and Brigid Curtin, the two mainstays behind the Curtin operation. “I’m from north Yorkshire, was working with coursing dogs in England but went into track dogs when that was banned,” Rachel explained.

“I wanted to be back into coursing dogs though, got offered a job with Pat, and it’s the best decision I ever made. He won the Irish Derby (in track) three weeks after I started and we were hoping to do the Derby double, with King Saunders, but it didn’t work out (the King deposed on day two). We had six in total here, and two still standing — we’re happy with that, and fingers crossed now for the finals.” Both won, Ashtown Amy winning €2,500 for her owners in the Greyhound & Pet World Spirit of Mischief Stakes, then Telly Dora following up only a few minutes later in the Stockproof Fencing Products Kitty Butler Stakes, roared on all the way by Brigid, who then did a mud-spattered victory jig — dammit, Brigid, you’d think ye’d won the Oaks! But there was good reason for Brigid’s dance of joy. “Ah it’s brilliant — Ballygodoon Lass, the mother of Telly Dora, was always unlucky for us, and she only had two pups, but those two pups — Telly Dora and Jet On Barney (in the Derby) — got to Clonmel. The hill was too much for Jet On Barney, and Telly was unlucky, the bitch that beat her got to the semi-final. Ballygodoon Lass has now been bred with Janey Macaroo — that should give us something for the future, so it is a great day! Two winners, brilliant, you couldn’t ask for better, it’s like winning the lotto — better than winning the lotto!”

So, a fitting final, a fulfilling final, a fairytale final, and afterwards, in spite of the cold, in spite of the doom and gloom currently enveloping this nation, Clonmel was aglow, aglow with the feelgood factor generated by another extraordinary meeting.