Irish Cup another odds-on winner

FROM THE privileged vantage point of the balcony high up in the stand, Limerick Racecourse was a picture yesterday morning, a radiant rural sunlit sight, everything perfectly in place for the 105th Irish Cup Meeting.

It’s one of coursing’s majors and, thanks to the on-going generous sponsorship of Limerick’s own JP McManus it has the biggest purse, with €80,000 going to the winner, €24,000 to the runner-up, major money also for those beaten in the semi-finals and quarter-finals.

Coming so soon after the National Coursing Meeting in Clonmel, however, which this year was another hugely successful affair, day one in Patrickswell can feel a little anti-climactic and yesterday, though there were several hundred in attendance and locked into the action on the field, the voices of the short-odds men carried clearly all around the stand.