Six nominees for Horse of the Year award
The nominees for the 2007 HRI awards were announced yesterday, with the winners to be announced on Monday, December 10th.
This year delivered plenty of success for Ireland both at home and abroad, making nominations for this year’s awards a tough choice for the selection committee. Special highlights included the win for the Gordon Elliott-trained Silver Birch in the Aintree Grand National, giving Ireland a remarkable six wins out of the last nine runnings of the race.
In May’s Boylesports 1,000 Irish Guineas, the Jim Bolger-trained Finsceal Beo became just the second filly in history to complete the Newmarket/Curragh 1,000 Guineas double.
In July Aidan O’Brien completed a magnificent 1-2-3 in the Budweiser Irish Derby at the Curragh led by Seamus Heffernan on Soldier of Fortune. O’Brien went on to win the two Group 1 races that had eluded him until 2007, winning the Irish Field St. Leger with Yeats and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with Dylan Thomas.
The list of nominees for the awards are as follows:
Horse of the Year: Beef or Salmon, Dylan Thomas, Finsceal Beo, New Approach, Peeping Fawn, Sublimity.
National Hunt: Nina Carberry, Noel Meade, Robert Power, Charlie Swan, Ruby Walsh.
Flat: Jim Bolger, Kevin Manning. Johnny Murtagh, Aidan O’Brien, Pat Smullen.
Outstanding Achievement: Enda Bolger, John Carr, Gordon Elliott, Seamus Heffernan, Tommy Stack.
Point-To-Point: Ian Ferguson, Derek O’Connor, Mark O’Hare, Michael O’Leary.
Contribution to the Industry: A special award which will be announced on the day of the awards (previous winners were Galway Race Committee, Con Collins & Kevin Prendergast).
