Category: RACING
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Possibility, promise and a bit of pressure
As wedding presents go, taking ownership of one the most successful, fabled and admired horse training establishments on the planet is pretty much hitting the jackpot for somebody of that persuasion. Now, not for a moment is there any suggestion that the acquisition of Jim Bolger’s fabled Coolcullen estate anything other than a business transaction…
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Racing’s slippery slope
In the last racing content – other than selections – which appeared in this space, mention was made of the fact that Pat Kelly, one of the smallest trainers in Ireland, albeit a very successful one, has had his licence suspended until further notice. Seemingly over something to do with discrepancies in animal medical records.…
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Roscommon comes up trumps for us as they rewrite history
There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Not that yours truly would ever be of a mind to do such a thing to the often loathesome yet strangely helpful felines. Put another way, tell me I can’t do something and not a gut but several will be busted in pursuance of proving doubters …
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Highs, lows and just enough of a pull on the heart strings
Noel Meade? Gordon? Or push the boat out and go for Willie? Yes lads and lassies, as only it can, the Cheltenham Festival has planted the seed of wanting to have a horse trained in Ireland again. The heart and soul has always said if the opportunity arose, it would be to Noel in Castletown.…
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Doing the right thing won’t make you popular
When my late father was into his eighth decade, he got to venture into an area of horse racing (which he adored all his life) which none of us would have ever thought possible. Particularly yours truly. That is to say, through a very special friendship out of what was once a business relationship with…
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JP catches racing clan cold with Cobden call
There is a sneery element of Irish society and, it pains me to say, the media, whose greatest function in life seems to be bandwagoning on people’s misfortune. Or at the very least finding fault with every scintilla of what they do in life. Now read on… There’s one particular hack at national level –…
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A Constitutional Conundrum
The prolific racing blogger Stephen Power (@racingblogger) posted a very simple question in the immediate aftermath of the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle: “If you owned Constitution Hill, what would you do now?”? First, the back story. From the first time Michael Buckley’s animal was seen on a course, he was seen as one of…
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Blow for Mullins as former champ sidelined
As far as the order of things go in the National Hunt racing season, things are still only in second gear at most. It’s a well known fact that, for example, Willie Mullins doesn’t go up through the gears with the intensity of his operation until early November when there tends to be sufficient rain…
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Danny Daly would be having a little laugh at my expense
For reasons which I’ve never quite been able to figure out, in certain circumstances, inclination has always been to veer towards the company of older folk rather than that of my own generation. If absolutely pressed for an explanation, it would be ventured that it was because somebody I once considered myself close to did…