MANY congratulations to Sam Ewing who, on his 10th racecourse ride, partnered his first winner in the five-furlong premier handicap at Cork last Saturday on the 12/1 shot Ardhoomey.

As with all other horses ridden by the Templepatrick native to date, the eight-year-old Dark Angel gelding is trained by Ewing’s boss Ger Lyons, who also saddled My Laureate to finish second under Gary Carroll.

The winning jockey conducted himself very well in a post-race interview on Racing TV, and Lyons’s representative, his brother Shane, said of the 16-year-old: “Sam is a great kid.”

While he did a little bit of registered show jumping on 128cms ponies, Sam then left the world of coloured poles for that of pony racing and was mentioned in this column in late June 2016 having partnered his first winner, and double, in that sphere the previous weekend.

He was to ride 105 pony race winners including Ida’s Dream when that mare landed the Dingle Derby in 2017 for Downpatrick’s Brian Laird. The jockey was then aged 13.

Of course, Sam was well-known on the local point-to-point scene before he ever started riding himself as he is a son of successful handler Warren Ewing and his wife Debbie, both very proud parents on Saturday.

When Sam won the Dingle Derby, Dylan Brown McMonagle was unseated at the start. That Co Donegal-born jockey, who was twice pony racing champion, increased his racecourse tally by two in the period under review having ridden winners at Leopardstown last Thursday week and at Sligo the following afternoon.

Andy Oliver engaged the services of leading apprentice Gavin Ryan for his sole runner at Tipperary last Friday and this first-time partnership proved successful when J.P. Ledwidge’s Danger Money landed the extended mile and a half maiden. The Caledon trainer gave 31,000gns at Newmarket in October 2018.