DESPITE the huge restrictions caused by the Covid pandemic which left the summer on the racetracks an often depressing place, the 2020 flat season brought a great diversity of success across many training yards and saw some new names make a big impression among the younger jockey ranks.
None more so though in the end, than the old team of Jim Bolger and jockey Kevin Manning, who reached a career milestone in Naas with his 1,600th winners. He and Bolger won the opening race of the season with Poetic Flare back in March, then landed the 2020 finale with the Teofilo colt Aiseirigh in Naas. On the week where Irish-bred and trained horses enjoyed great success in Australia and America, it was a provided a perfect symmetry to the season.
YOU might be forgiven for thinking the Deadwood Stage was arriving in Dundalk on Monday evening along with a chorus of ‘whip crack away, whip crack away,” such was the level of stewards’ activity on the whip after the two-mile handicap.
Robbie Colgan on Punters Poet got two days for excessive frequency, Rory Cleary on the winner Nightly Wailing also got two days for the same offence.
Shane Foley on Aasleagh Fawn got six days for excessive frequency, Gearoid Brouder on My Manekineko got seven days and Mark Enright on Important Message also got six days also for excessive frequency.
It did not look particularly obvious cases of abuse of the rules with many of the strikes just seeming to be one over by Brouder and Enright and not delivered with any great force, with only Foley looking to be using a bit of maximum force up the straight.
After being dumped leaving the stalls on Wednesday and lucky not to be injured, Mark Enright might well be feeling riding over the jumps is easier!
Sire suppot
THERE was some debate and opinions offered last season when two of the best horses to retire appeared to be standing as predominantly National Hunt sires.
In that regard, it was good to see that both Poet’s Word (221) and Crystal Ocean (280) covered large books in their first season.
Whitmore – if at first you don’t …
AMERICAN racing is not always a source of feel-good stories but there has been some good and bad this year.
Bad was the positive drugs tests, however you attempt to explain them. Good were Tiz The Law and Swiss Skydiver as popular classic winners.
One good moment may have been lost in the better races at the Breeders’ Cup when the seven-year-old Whitmore won the Sprint. Back in 2016, the Ron Moquett-trained gelding finished a 37-and-a-half-length last behind Nyquist in the Kentucky Derby. Returning at sprint distance that December, he went on to make a name of himself, especially at Oaklawn where he won three editions of the Grade 3 Count Fleet Stakes.
Then on the card where Nyquist – who now stands at $75,000 a go – had his first Breeders’ Cup runners and a Grade 1 winner, the ‘old man’ Whitmore, still earning his corn the hard way, got his biggest win on his fourth attempt.