Coakley is king of the sand

CONGRATULATIONS to trainer Denis Coakley on being recognised by Timeform as being the top trainer at Dundalk over the past five years in terms of strike-rate, pipping the great master of Ballydoyle by 27.27% to Aidan’s 21.84%.

“Yes,” said Denis, “that has been brought to my attention, I guess it’s not often you’ll see that! Actually it’s over a period of three years not five, I only took out a licence in July 2017.

“And for one week last year I believe I was Ireland’s leading trainer because of a big prize at Dundalk – never likely to see that again. Park Row has won six times there and Munfallet twice and Boxer Dunford three times. You could say the common thread is that my horses like good ground.

“Because I used to be in pony racing running horses, you could say I’m the ultimate sandman! Ours is a small family operation with Ross my son riding. A huge part of the success is down to Ross riding them. He knows the horses, I don’t tell him anything. He knows what suits and has the freedom to ride the race to suit the horse not the other way round.”

Denis has high praise for the set-up at Dundalk, with its compact set-up, stables, parade-ring and track all convenient to each other and is ready to get going again with the green light. But “the hardest winner to get in racing is the next one”.