CROKE PARK SUNDAY
IT’S All-Ireland Quarter Finals Day and I make the trip to “the big house” to cheer on the Kingdom against Galway. I love the football days out in our nation’s capital and always start off with a couple of sharpners in the Kerry haunt, The Palace Bar on Fleet Street.
“Big Willie” is the boss and always looks after us. His dad, Liam, is a Tipp man and a regular for years to the Harvest Festival and he tells gas stories about the Kerry greats down the decades who would avail of the privacy of the snug just inside the door.
Of course, the great Con Houlihan was also a regular here and his name is inscribed on the path outside the bar.
I am lucky enough to have a Lower Hogan ticket right in the middle of the pitch sitting beside Ballylongford man Martin “Nuts” O’Brien. Tickets will be tight now coming up to the final, provided we get there and the only one I will pass on is a Cusack one.
I would rather watch the match on the telly in The Palace then sit in The Cusack. I sat there twice and we lost twice both times to Tyrone so never again!
“Nuts” is a GAA fanatic but he didn’t get his nickname for thrashing and analysing the guts out of matches but for when he was working in New York back in the day.
You see, he was the only fella on the job who would walk out on the steel beams 50, 60 or 80 stories up without any safety harness to pin them together! It’s not a great game but Kerry get the job done and as the great Darragh Ó Sé always says, “it starts in August boys.”
GALWAY MONDAY
I love Galway week. Always have. I have a memory of coming here with The Boss and Joan back in the day. I don’t remember what won the Plate but I remember the mother feeding me ham sandwiches with YR sauce on them!
The circle of life is moving on as now I head up the road this morning with son Jack and his girlfriend Kelsey with me as they are going socialising for the day if you don’t mind.
I take an apartment just off Eyre Square which is ideal for all the hot spots in the town within a five-minute walk. The lads were asking me coming up about Galway and the craic going back down the years and it got me thinking.
Ye all know I’m a bit of a romantic anyway and I always look back on the past with fondness.
When I started staying, Salthill was the spot. I remember heading into places like the Warwick Hotel, the Rio and Sea Point for the first time. Seeing legends of jockeys, trainers, punters and bookmakers having the banter, playing poker, and, for some, chatting up gorgeous women.
A few years later I shared a room in the Salthill Hotel with Stormin’ Norman and the much loved and missed Tony Powell. One of the game’s greatest ever characters, Poweller was always good to us young lads, giving you advice, a lift racing or like this night introducing you to his favourite tipple Black Bush whiskey.
He kept the party going all night so much so that in the morning with his fancy gab, he even persuaded two of the hotel maids to join us for one!
Then there was the famous “Dungeon”. Do ye remember it? In the now derilect Corrib Hotel out the Limerick Road.
The Thursday night was the night to be there with Friday being an evening meeting you wouldn’t leave till 9 or 10 in the morning! You could mingle with the winning jockey of the Plate or Hurdle, ask JP for a tip or have a chat with the Taoiseach of the day, Albert Reynolds. There were card games, pitch and toss games, spoof or if you fancied fisticuffs you got that too! But it seems the one spot that is still going strong and has stayed popular with the racing crowd is the Hole In The Wall pub and its gas to see a new generation of kids come along every few years.
Of course you will always get one of them who wants to replicate Paul Carberry’s stunt by hanging off the rafters in the bar and with health and safety the way it is today sure they don’t last long before a bouncer does his job!
GALWAY TUESDAY
There are a couple of times on the circuit every year when you genuinely are moved by a reception that a winner gets from the crowd and this evening is one when Caccavelle wins under Billy Lee for Robbie McNamara. It’s over two years now since he got the fall in Wexford and he is enjoying life as a trainer.
A big lover of Galway, Robbie had great days here as a jockey and please God this evening will his first of many winners here as a trainer.
Being Galway week it brings me back to last year when we got the news that JT had passed. His anniversary was the July 26th and I’m sure he is looking down on cousin Robbie, more than likely slagging him about something.
With two days over, all is going well for us, thankfully, and I head down to the Quays on Shop Street to meet up with “Ma Browns Boys” for a few pints.
GALWAY WEDNESDAY
Would you credit it, the one race today that the weather turns nasty for is the Plate! Mind you, I am still delighted with our set of pictures, with Liam and Kevin covering The Mooneen and niece Ruth looking after our remote camera on the TV hoist to capture an overview of the enclosures.
Balko Des Flos wins under Davy Russell for Henry de Bromhead and owners Gigginstown and sure Davy knows the drill well, looking after the requests from the paparazzi.
He is joined by wife, Edel, and there are lovely images of the two together. He is in a rich vein of form at the minute, having ridden 15 winners in June and 11 in July, and currently leads Ruby by 13 winners in the jockeys’ table.
I manage to finish up in the press room for 8.30pm and a quick change sees me in Nimmos Restaurant to meet up with Chips, Snitch and Lord Halifax.
GALWAY THURSDAY
Heavy showers again today, lads with the lead in of the Galway Hurdle winner Tigris River, trained by Joseph O’Brien, matching the day 20 years ago for rain that his dad Aidan trained Toast The Spreece to win.
I was glad along with Caroline Norris to be able to take refuge under winning owner J.P. McManus’ umbrella.
“I think we’ll wait a minute to take the picture,” says JP! It’s a tough result for the runner-up Swamp Fox with the Joe Murphy-trained horse also finishing second in the feature race on Monday evening.
Ridden by young Barry Browne, he went down fighting by a neck and winning jockey Barry Geraghty tells him “you still have 20 years to win this as that’s as long as I’m trying”!
Thankfully, we put a decent package together on the day and it being “the Thursday night of Galway” I am looking forward to the night’s craic around the town.
One man I would normally bump into isn’t here this year, so a big hello for handicapper Noel O’Brien, and we look forward to having a pint in The Hole In The Wall next year.
One Galway story before ye go. With all the hullabaloo about Frankie Dettori having to eat fish and drink water to get his weight down to ride Enable last weekend, it reminded me of Stormin’ Norman and Casey a few years back both doing 9st 7lb in The Plate.
The boys arrived to Galway the Sunday evening and between then and the race all they had was a bowl of chowder! You wonder how would Frankie have managed in Galway!