Exciting finishes

at Tyrella

THERE wasn’t a huge amount of runners at Tyrella last Saturday for the second of the East Down Hunt’s spring meetings but there was good racing with exciting finishes on a dry if somewhat blustery day.

Among the large-sized crowd was Eimear Chance who was recently appointed marketing executive for Irish Thoroughbred Marketing with responsibility for promoting the country’s thoroughbred industry primarily in Britain and mainland Europe.

Eimear was at the point-to-point with her good friend Ciara Mulholland, sister of Antrim-born jockey turned trainer Neil who featured in this paper’s Cheltenham magazine last weekend and was to have such a good start to the Festival on Tuesday.

Later on Saturday, she was also among the attendance at the nearby Minerstown Tavern where her father, dual Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning trainer Noel, was on the panel for the preview night.

Confined hunt memories

SATURDAY’s confined hunt race was sponsored by Stephen Magee and William McDowell in memory of their late fathers who were, respectively, Joe Magee of the Ballywooden Stud and Tom McDowell of Seaforde.

Maintaining the tradition of his father by running a couple of horses in the race, Stephen had no luck as Our Boy Barney, the youngest horse in the five-runner field, was last of the four finishers while the mare Swan Island fell five from home. It would be good to see more Northern riders getting mounts in races such as these.

Lyttle goes Strictly

IT’s great to see such close ties between the Tyrella point-to-points and Downpatrick racecourse with Saturday’s judge being racecourse chairman Peter Stewart while his assistant was the track’s manager, Richard Lyttle.

For the latter, it was going to be a long day into night as Downpatrick Racecourse was the venue for a Strictly Come Dancing competition which was a fundraiser for the locally-based not for profit organisation Helping Hands Romania.

Rumour had it that Richard, no mean performer on the dance floor himself, was to be one of the judges.

Lion a good Choice

THE three-length win of Lion’s Choice in the novice riders’ maiden was not only good news for his immediate connections but also for Trevor Badger who stands the seven-year-old’s sire, Let The Lion Roar, at the Bridge House Stud in Co Westmeath.

The bay gelding, who was bred by Susan Bredin out of her Norwich mare Addie’s Choice, is a full-brother to the Ben Pauling-trained five-year-old Always Lion who ran in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper (Grade 1) at Cheltenham on Wednesday.

Lion’s Choice comes from the first crop of Let The Lion Roar whose retirement to stud coincided with the downturn in the economy so he hasn’t that many foals on the ground.

The 2001 Sadler’s Wells horse, who won over a mile at two and was placed in the Epsom Derby (Group 1), Great Voltigeur Stakes (Group 2) and Dante Stakes (Group 2), is out of the Dancing Brave mare Ballerina, dam also of Millenary and Head In The Clouds who are both by Rainbow Quest.