THIS year’s late spring hunter chase schedule has certainly had a congested look about it and it has done little to uphold the quality within these races.

With Easter falling at the end of April this year, there has already been the shorter than ideal gap between the traditional hunter chases at Easter like the Joseph O’Reilly at Fairyhouse and Jack Tyner Memorial in Cork, and those that took place a week later at the Punchestown Festival, including the Champion Hunter Chase.

That proximity, which not only affected the hunter chase division, was largely unavoidable for this year, however that cannot be said for the subsequent hunter chases, with five taking place within the space of eight days.

With the exception of the Killarney contest won by It Came To Pass, the other four programmed races have largely been targeted at the same pool of horses, and it is unsurprising that the races within that period have produced an average field size of just six runners between them, with the quality having certainly been diluted by the proliferation of races within such a short period.

WELL REWARDED

Those handlers who spotted the opportunities that were offered to them last week certainly were rewarded, and it is surprising that more did not avail of them, given that each of the races had a prize fund of at least €10,000, significantly more than what they would be competing for between the flags.

In the case of the latter two maiden hunter chases at Downpatrick and Tramore, there was no less than €20,550 up for grabs between the two races.

At Downpatrick last Friday, My Oakclahome claimed the first prize of €6,250 for winning the two-mile-seven-furlongs contest, with €2,000 going to the runner-up Nabraska, whilst Crutches Lad brought home €1,000 for his connections after finishing in third.

That trio have all won maiden point-to-point races for older horses this spring, and as winners level horses, have benefitted from the significantly greater prize money that is on offer in these maiden hunter chases, in comparison with winners’ races.

My Oakclahome for instance had collected €390 for chasing home Solo Cargo in the winner-of-one contest at Curraghmore three weeks prior to his Downpatrick success and the €6,250 purse which came with it.

Even when you factor in the very welcome €5,000 bonus race that the INHS Committee introduced at Dromahane this year, these maiden hunter chases still carry a prize fund which is even double that.

A further €10,000 will be up for grabs in the winner-of-one hunter chase at Downpatrick next Friday, and with the IHRB having made a number of amendments to the hunter chase license requirements to encourage more handlers to avail of them, this could present the connections of winner’s level horses with an opportunity that should not be swiftly overlooked.

recent hunter chase opportunities

Date Course Race Prize Runners

May 6th Down Royal Hunter Chase (Winr Two) €10,000 5 runners

May 9th Tipperary Novice Hunter Chase €10,500 8 runners

May 10th Downpatrick Maiden Hunter Chase €10,000 6 runners

May 13th Killarney Hunter Chase €10,500 6 runners

May 14th Tramore Maiden Hunter Chase €10,050 7 runners

Duggan could be on target for awards haul

JOHN Duggan could be in for a bumper haul at next month’s The Irish Field Point-to-Point Awards, as his Longhouse Music in pole position to be crowned the champion point-to-point horse and champion mare, he also leads the Weatherbys champion breeder category himself.

He has bred the winners of 12 point-to-point races, with the record breaking efforts of the Sam Curling-trained Longhouse Music to claim no fewer than 10 races, accounting for the bulk of those successes.

She has also been joined in the winner’s enclosure by the Duggan-bred siblings Longhouse Poet and Jamesbrook.

The former also carried Duggan’s own colours when he was sent off as odds-on favourite when he made a winning debut for Curling’s yard at Boulta in January. He has since remained unbeaten following his victory in a bumper at the Punchestown Festival recently for his new connections, Martin Brassil and Sean and Bernadine Mulryan.

The son of Yeats is a half-brother to the third of his trio of individual winners this season in Jamesbrook. This son of Milan tasted maiden success when he won a five-year-old geldings’ maiden at Moig South in the autumn for Curling and in the colours of Michael O’Sullivan.

Those 12 races victories from three individual horses, gives Duggan the upper hand over the two other breeders that have also bred three winning point-to-pointers this season.

Ken Parkhill has bred Colin Bowe’s Knockanard winner Ferny Hollow, Patrick Turley’s Punchestown winner Power Of Pause and Dermot McLoughlin’s Loughanmore and Kirkistown winner The Echo Boy, whilst Michael Long has bred Denis Hogan’s winner Mossy White, Ken Budds’ Knockanard winner Mrs Mcro and James Collender’s Lingstown and Boulta winner Kilbree Shadow.

If a fourth individual horse that either Parkhill or Long has bred was to win a race at any of the remaining ten fixtures, that would see them clinch the title, in what would be a first breeders title for each of that trio who have not won the prize in the any of the 16 years that it has been awarded.