MUCH has been made of the fact that Irish flat racing has been dominated for decades by the ‘big four’ and similarly, two mighty stables are slipping the field in the National Hunt code.

A feature of the sport of harness racing in Ireland is that success and ‘good runs’ were spread quite fairly over six or eight yards in 2017. Yet, at the end of the season SHRI Awards, one stable, the “Ballydoyle” of Irish trotting, the Meadowbranch Stables of north county Dublin, monopolised the crystal trophies.