WE hear Liam Burke and Facile Vega will feature in the questions set for the annual Mark O’Hanlon Racing Quiz in The Lord Bagenal, Leighlinbridge, Co Carlow, on Wednesday, March 29th.

Organised by Joe Foley of Ballyhane Stud, the quiz is making a comeback after three years. Joe reported: “It was the last big social event in racing staged before Covid, and I thought it was about time we resurrected it. The Racing Post team won it in 2020 and Aisling Crowe has promised to polish the trophy before handing it back. It became very tobacco-stained after all the times Bobby O’Ryan won it!”

The transfer window is open at the moment and it will be interesting to see if star strikers Ryan McElligott and Brian Kavanagh switch sides, now that they hold different jobs to when they were cup winners in the past. The press room is usually well-represented on the night though one journalist, showing his age, was recently heard to quip: “Hopefully they’ll have a few questions from the 20th century.”

An understanding Joe commented: “I know how he feels. I’d find it easier to rattle off the names of Cheltenham winners from the 1980s than tell you what won last year.

“But we have students from the Irish National Stud and Godolphin Flying Start taking part, so we have to put in questions about recent events too. Flat, jumps, old, modern, Dubai, Bahrain and Cheltenham - they will all feature. There’s a few bloodstock ones too.”

Mobile phones are taken from participants and placed in see-through ziplock bags on the table, so you can’t use them to cheat but you can see if someone is calling you in an emergency. Or you could just bring two mobile phones.