Portmarnock Saturday

BILLY Roche’s dream start to the 2022 season continued last Saturday at Portmarnock as he recorded a double for the second weekend in a row.

The tall master of the barn at Cloghran won the E and F trot with Buliano and the A to D pace with Star Attraction.

Buliano showed speed like a pacer in getting out of the gate and got to the quarter in 30.2 seconds. He had been backed in from 6/4 and the bookies soon knew their fate. Coreo Fligny (John Richardson for Aidan Caffrey) rallied gamely but did not look like troubling the winner.

Once he had burned off the opposition, Roche was able to drop his hands a little and the pace slowed to a 2.04.7 mile – or 1,600 metres in the French influenced programme.

Star Attraction came in from England in 2021 with some solid runs on his form page, including a heat win at the VDM as a two-year-old.

Yorkshireman Alan Haythornthwaite formerly trained the gelding for the Fletchers from Wolverhampton. It would be hard to improve an animal out of the Barnoldswick yard and even the clever Roches struggled to get a tune out of Star Attraction last year.

Looking up

Things are looking up for Star Attraction as he ran a gallant second to Ayr Papparazzi in the Bernie Kelly Final. Saturday’s win in a shade over 2.00 from the useful yardstick North To Alaska (Noel Ryan) is a sign that the Roche string are in rude health.

The Roches and cousins love a winner. A loud rendition of Happy Birthday to Billy - sung in the winner’s circle proves that even ruthless gambling stables have a soft side.

Winning streak ends

The bad news from the opening grade E and F trot was that the remarkable 13-race winning streak of Harry Knows did not become 14. The good news was that Hallow Way Road, so often the bridesmaid behind Harry Knows, finally got his day.

Leap-based Patrick Hill deserves great credit for his patient handling of Hallow Way Road, who is ‘not a novice’s drive’. Since his early starts, the son of Vivaldo Bella has been a handful in warming up.

Last Saturday, he was excused from ‘scoring’* by the stewards. Harry Knows (Patrick Kane jnr) came with a strong run, broke and got going again to be staying on third.

Hallow Way Road (touched 5/1) finished strongly to beat Finale Jihaime. The unpredictable runner-up got it right for Joe Caffrey and should win a race soon if she stays down.

The winner started off with John Shanahan and is named after John’s brother’s address in London.

Newtown Shadow was a popular winner of the E to F pace for owner/driver Derek Jennings. Derek’s son Kal was turned out in the family colours and was a big part of the celebrations.

One Cool Touch (John Boy Roche) and Newtown Alana (Leah McNevin) made it second and third for young drivers.

Speaking of celebrations, Troy McAleer (17) from Saint Margaret’s celebrated his win with Oakwood Amari like he had just won The Little Brown Jug. As less than 50% of each year’s draft of yearlings actually make the races, never mind win a race, Troy’s elation is understandable.

Troy had Oakwood Amari on top early and she won cosily from Joe Sheridan’s Springhill Storm (Sean Kane) and the Monaghan runner Highbrooks Ignite. The original ‘jolly’, Ski From The Top, broke and was never a factor.

Anthony Malone is a busy farrier amongst the trotting community. The Malones know how to ‘do’ a trotter as they proved with Epsom d’Occagnes. On Sunday there were reports of some nice bets on Eliano Love who had a series of unplaced efforts to his name. Devoir Math (Billy Roche) was six lengths adrift in second place.

Both Portmarnock and Dunmanway stage cards tomorrow. The Dublin track is off the R107 Malahide Road. The Cork field is on the Enniskeane to Dunmanway road.

www.irishharnessracing.com carries full results, start times, racecards etc.

* scoring – the American term for warming up, usually short sprints.

IHRA National

Drivers’ Title 2022

Latest standings at May 18th, 2022

Driver Wins

John Richardson, Dublin 9

Billy Roche, Dublin 7

Oisin Quill, Kenmare 5

Patrick Kane jnr, Trim 4

Sean Kane, The Naul 4

Inchydoney Sunday

EVEN if you are not a dyed-in-the-wool trotting follower, you’d find it hard not to be stirred by the sight of seven or eight trotters striding in unison against the backdrop of the endless Atlantic Ocean at Inchydoney Strand.

Last Sunday, the Cork regional organisers put on some show as Mother Nature lent them a half-mile track for around four hours.

Inchydoney has to be one of this country’s most beautiful locations. The bright colours and sulkies, the bookies, the public address with all the jargon. The people who normally enjoy a quiet Sunday walk here got some awakening. The tides meant that the meeting was over as quickly as it started.

All the usual Cork harness crowd were out in force. As the brief card wore on, it was nice to see a good crowd of non-racing folk taking an interest on the sands and on the outcrops high above. Commentator James Griffin explained the sport well to the newcomers.

However, comments passed about the legs of one harness racing reporter who got into the swing of things in football shorts will not be repeated here!

Dan’s double

On the ‘track’ there was a driving double for Dan O’Mahony who trains at the race field at Dunmanway.

Dan took the F to G pace with Blue Supremo who had been off the track for over three years. Rhyds Panache (Fionn O’Reilly) put up a fight but the bird had flown.

On the trotting gait O’Mahony picked up €1,313 generously assisted by Le TROT of France when the consistent Dinah Washington wore down the front-running Valanzana (Eoin Murphy). Eoin’s uncle Donal Murphy split the two in second place with Hippie Sisu.

The feature race was a leg of the IHRA/Le TROT four-year-old championship.

Plus ça change was the order of the day as Immaculata (John Richardson) confirmed hard track form and beat Iron Paddy (Ronan Norton) by five lengths with the Macroom-based Inspire Me (Luke Kelleher) in third.

“She’s a nice filly,” John told The Irish Field. “All going comes alike to her which is just as well as some parts of the beach were harder than others.”

JR went on to say: “Fair play to the Cork harness people, that meeting takes a bit of organising. There was a lovely atmosphere about the place.”

One bettter

Ronan Norton went one better in the opener with a win aboard Fair Play Briolais. From Killashee, Co Longford to Clonakilty is a fair drive so the win shortened the journey.

The winner (3/1 to 6/4) did not go unsupported. The aptly-named Beach de Bellouet (Oisin Quill) ran well for second place.

Share A Smile (Timmy Moloney) had the benefit of a couple of ‘tighteners’ at Portmarnock under his belt. The pair prevailed by a neck in the E to F pace from the Florida-owned IB Paddington (Donal Murphy).

West Cork is coming down with young talented drivers at the moment and one such, Richard Kingston, took out the closer with the Welsh-bred Brywins Starship.

Despite drawing on the gate, Richard took cover on the rail and produced Starship in the last quarter to beat the brave Showtime Notorious with Derry McCarthy.

Brywins Starship was bred by Brian Davies of Sennybridge, a former world champion sheep shearer and father of British National Hunt trainer Sheila Lewis.