MICHAEL Halford and Tracey Collins may have their first runners under their new joint training licence next Friday at Dundalk. Earlier this week the two trainers revealed details of the new partnership arrangement at Conyngham Lodge. The duo are combining resources to form the second official training partnership in Ireland.

Halford said yesterday: “We’re hoping to have two or three runners next week, all going well. Ronan Whelan will be our first choice jockey.”

A Group 1-winning trainer who has also enjoyed success from Royal Ascot to Dubai, Halford is part of a select group in Irish racing as he among just a handful of trainers to have saddled over 1,000 winners to date. Collins has maintained one of the proudest and long standing operations on the Curragh. Conyngham Lodge, which was built in 1855, has already passed through several generations of her family.

Her grandfather, M.C. Collins, sent out Windsor Slipper to win the Irish Triple Crown in 1942 and trained five classic winners from Conyngham Lodge. Con Collins, father of Tracey, continued that heritage with a myriad of big race successes headed by the brilliant Sandy Creek, the classic-winning Princess Pati and the Moyglare Stakes heroine Chelsea Rose.

Tracey Collins has saddled group race winners in Ireland and Britain as well as enjoying success in Dubai. She said: “There is a long and proud tradition here at Conyngham Lodge and I’m greatly looking forward to the next chapter in the yard’s history by teaming up with Michael from the start of March. It’s an exciting venture and one full of potential and I hope we have much to look forward to over the coming months and years.”

Halford added: “The association between the Collins family and Irish racing goes back close to a century and is one of the proudest in our sport. I’m grateful, humbled and excited by the chance to train alongside Tracey at one of the most famous yards on the Curragh and look forward to starting this new chapter next month.”

In other flat racing news, trainer Jim Bolger told Thoroughbred Daily News that he intends to support jockeys Rory Cleary and apprentice Luke McAteer in the absence of Kevin Manning, who retired last autumn.