Punters get ‘dig-out’ with homegrown winners
It was very much business as usual at Prestbury Park when a capacity crowd saw the Irish rack up four winners on the first day of a festival, as well as an honorary victory in the shape of the Jonjo O’Neill-trained, JP McManus-owned Wichita Lineman.
The Irish were supposed to have stayed at home in their droves — as many as 50% of the normal travelling contingent supposedly keeping their thin-on-the-ground euro in their collective pockets — but those that came were buoyed by the welcome rush of Irish winners.
OK, so the much-fancied Cousin Vinny failed to deliver in the opening Supreme Novices’ Hurdle but we won the race anyway — thanks to Noel Meade’s Go Native, and then Forpadydeplasterer added a real pre-recession feel to the Arkle Chase when holding off Kalahari King in the dying strides.
Famously named after a “dig-out” friend of the taoiseach back in the good old days, the horse’s victory raised the rafters, not least because he is owned by a boisterous gang of Irishmen who very much represent old-time racing values — ie, those we were used to until about 10 months ago.
The Goat Racing Syndicate is named after the bar in Dublin owned by one of its members, Charlie Chawke, and their horse runs in the colours of Sunderland Football Club, of which Chawke is a shareholder and which, until recently, had a very definite Irish element to it.
Sunderland chairman and former Irish soccer great Niall Quinn was one of many here cheering on “Paddy’s” success and while we were told beforehand there were going to be very few Irish here to cheer on very few Irish winners, the reaction to the win was nothing short of tumultuous.
If the pre-festival picture of deserted enclosures and empty corporate boxes was all the rage a week ago, then it was most certainly blown out of the water. Sure, it was easier to get around the place than in recent years, but that may well have been down to the almost complete absence of poseurs and sponsors’ guests. It would appear that many of the ‘great and good’ have given the festival a miss this year and that resulted in an atmosphere which was redolent of times past, when real racing fans outnumbered the liggers.
If that was a cause for celebration among racing people, then the larger than expected number of Irish racing fans had a lot to celebrate too.
One of the biggest of all racing fans — millionaire financier JP McManus — was also celebrating. Not only was yesterday his 58th birthday, but he had two winners in Wichita Lineman and Garde Champetre — with the latter actually leading home a 1-2-3 of his horses in the Cross Country Steeplechase.
The Limerick man might have seen his Champion Hurdle favourite Binocular beaten into third place but he was certainly not complaining about his lot.
And the day ended on an absolute high with heavily supported favourite Quevega — stylishly booted home by Irish Examiner columnist Ruby Walsh — providing the perfect get-out for the Irish hordes.
The Irish are already ahead of the total wins some pessimists were predicting for the whole meeting.
If we can keep up this sort of strike rate, the recession might be over before we get home.
