SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH

HARVEST FESTIVAL

In the words of John F Kennedy “all politics is local” and, wearing my Listowel Racecourse hat, a pet peeve of mine is the fact that other meetings are allowed clash with the Harvest Festival. This doesn’t happen with Galway or Punchestown so why does it happen with Listowel?

The meeting generates around €15 million in betting revenue and brings in close to 100,000 racegoers so it deserves to be treated the same way that the other two festivals are.

Okay Champions Weekend is where it is in the calendar now and you know what, we can live with that. Not too many cars pull out of Kerry and bypass us to head to the Curragh on the opening day of the Harvest Festival, but I do think the Harvest Festival should be a stand alone fixture the same as Galway and Punchestown.

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 13TH

MIKE THE PIES

We have our Jockey’s Question and Answer session this evening in the popular pub in aid of the injured jockeys fund and Davy Russell and Bryan Cooper put on a great show. Over 200 people pack into the pub and, for an hour and a half, they are enthralled with great banter and craic from the boys.

Fair play to Russell who answers “the elephant in the room” question about losing the Gigginstown job honestly and both he and Cooper nominated Jack Kennedy as a young rider to watch, while Gavin Cromwell got the vote as up and coming trainer to watch out for.

The boys were joined on stage by popular owner John Breslin, who has legendary status around the town as he sacked local boy Larry Guiney four times in New York back in the day. “You just couldn’t not like him,” John tells us. One day John got a call from the NYPD that one of his trucks was parked up on a double line outside a barber shop with Larry inside getting a hair cut. “For God’s sake Larry, could you not cut your hair in your own time,” says John, and Larry’s reply “but sure John didn’t it grow on your time.”

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14TH

KERRY NATIONAL DAY

Today is Kerry National day, one of the last remaining ‘traditional’ days in the calendar and it’s the day when the Harvest Festival really takes off. The race carries a prize fund of €175,000 and with this year’s Galway Plate winner Lord Scoundrel in the field along with an English raider for trainer Ian Williams, and with the top-rated horse at 156, it’s a top-class race.

Again, you are just hoping for decent weather, which we have, and a crowd of 25,381 turn up on The Island to see Garristown native Lisa O’Neill aboard Wrath Of Titans, for her boss Gordon Elliott, become the second lady jockey to win the race, after Katie Walsh two years ago. It’s a magnificent feat by the popular Lisa as it is her first win over fences and she has ridden only six point-to-point winners! She is another big cog in the Elliott wheel as she works in the office for him, rides out, mucks out and often drives the lorry, and fair play to Elliott for giving her the opportunity in such a big race. Owned by Gigginstown, it’s their second year in a row winning, after Rogue Angel last year, and they ran six in the race.

The gallant runner-up was locally trained Rightville Boy from the Paddy Neville stable in Askeaton and he gave his army of supporters a great thrill leading over the last under Ryan Treacy. Owned by Ballylongford native Denis Enright and the trainer’s father Dan and brother Peter, it marked a fantastic training performance from Paddy, and hopefully they will have their day in the sun.

With the town mobbed after racing, we have dinner at home and JQ does a great job on a couple of chickens with all the trimmings for our guests this evening. We have Las Vagas Tommy, Sneaky Boo, Snitch, Chips, Lord Halifax, Joe Tickets, The Grasshopper and Amy Side Saddle. Sure the banter and sing song is mighty and if Carlsberg did Kerry National days...!

I am deeply saddened to hear the news about the passing of Killenaule native Pat Carroll. Pat was a great friend of The Boss and ran a picture framing business in Fethard for years. He was our framer but, more so, he was a great friend of the family. Nothing was ever a problem and every day on the phone there was slagging.

He was a proud GAA man and got great banter out of the Tipperary football team this year with their run in the All-Ireland. To his wife Helen, daughters Lorraine and Siobhan and son Michael we pass on our thoughts and prayers.

Unfortunately another great character that passed away recently was Ester Timmons. While her name probably won’t mean that much to you, but when I tell you that she was one of the ‘fruit’ ladies you will remember her. Mother to Marie, who still carries on the tradition, Ester was the youngest looking 83-year-old I ever met. Remember her pitch, “apples, pears, bananas or chocolate.”

ALL IRELAND

Sunday is D-Day for the Dubs and Mayo. As a Kerryman you feel jealous, as there is no day out like an All-Ireland final in Croke Park. We gave the Dubs a great game but they showed why they are champions and put us away in the semi-final. Have Mayo a chance? Course they have. It’s a final and anything can happen. I wish both sets of supporters the best but my gut feeling is that Ballinrobe races next Tuesday will be rocking and I worry for manager John Flanelly that he might be short of a few staff who could well be celebrating their All-Ireland famine in style!