TALKING dogs & horses
Wednesday March 03 2010
WITH two Bumpers and a two-mile Maiden for older horses making up the first three races, Dundalk's opening meeting of the year which kick-started the new Flat season on Friday night had a National Hunt feel about it. It was a difficult card for punters – just two favourites obliging – but a memorable one for jockey Tim Carroll who recorded a double aboard Dark Prospect for Noel Meade and Luke Comer's course specialist Bashkirov, now successful on three of his last four visits to the track.
Pat Smullen's dash back from Dubai proved in vain as he failed to register, and for that reason Fran Berry will have been pleased to get an early winner on the board courtesy of Six Of Hearts in the finale.
Following the retirement of Michael Kinane, this year's jockeys' championship is regarded as a three-cornered fight between Smullen, Berry and Johnny Murtagh.
Murtagh missed this meeting through suspension and will also have to sit out the next one on 12th March for the same reason.
Speaking during the meeting, Smullen was another who couldn't understand why the all-weather track was closed for three months over the winter.
Whatever, the HRI says, there would appear to be a demand for an all-Bumper card; the first two races on Friday each had 18 runners with reserves.
They attracted horses from every part of the country, the winners representing trainers John Kiely and Paul Nolan, from Waterford and Wexford respectively.
Elsewhere, and rather like football challenge matches, it can be dangerous to read too much into schooling sessions, like the one on Sunday which was broadcast from Leopardstown on Attheraces.
But didn't the Dessie Hughestrained Rare Bob look the business in his piece of work?
Top-class
A TOP-CLASS Tote Gold Cup got underway at Shelbourne Park on Saturday night, and it produced no end of talking points, not least the elimination of leading fancies, Mesedo Blue and Tullymurry Act.
Both are towards the head of the betting for the English Derby, and tardy starts proved their undoing with Puppy Derby champ Tullymurry meeting all sorts of trouble before trailing the field.
Fastest run of the session came in the first heat from the Owen McKenna-conditioned Thurlesbeg Joker, a fantastic 28.32 which was all the more meritorious given the son of Head Bound came from behind the pace-setting Royal Tornado.
- Francis CARROLL
