IF, as planned, the Shark Hanlon-trained Hewick runs in both the Boodles Gold Cup at Cheltenham and the Randox Grand National at Aintree, you can be certain the story of his €850 purchase at Goresbridge in 2017 will be the most-repeated of the year across all media – print, television, digital, the lot.

To date, T.J. McDonald’s nine-year-old Virtual gelding, who was bred in Co Kildare by William Quinn, has amassed over €717,000 in prize money – in Ireland, Britain and the United States – with the most recent of his 10 wins having come in the King George VI Chase at Kempton on St Stephen’s Day.

Little wonder then that Goresbridge Horse Sales, now run by Ed and Siobhan Dohohoe, announced this week that they are once again going to hold dedicated thoroughbred sales at their Co Kilkenny base. The first of these, a sale of point-to-point horses, has been scheduled for Thursday, April 18th. See page 4 for further details.