Crowds come out as Listowel basks in glorious sunshine
After the perfect storm of Irish Champions Weekend, the feel-good factor continued unabated on the domestic scene with another massively enjoyable Harvest Festival in Listowel.
ield sizes took a hit over jumps earlier in the week as a result of the dry ground, but there was unanimous praise for the state of the racing surface. It is never easy to keep both sides of the family fully happy when you are hosting dual-purpose cards over the course of a seven-day festival.
The track in Listowel was watered to maintain ground that could be deemed safe for jump racing, and the consensus was that that brief was met with aplomb, albeit it wasn't soft enough for trainers to run as many as might have been the case if it had been watered sufficiently from on high. In the 20 Flat races held between Monday and Friday - four each day - the average field size was a satisfactory 10.5, so that helped compensate.
Over jumps, the overall average field size was 9.5. The bigger fields on Saturday that were prompted by Friday's rainfall inflated that figure slightly, while it is also skewed by the large fields that turned out for the featured handicaps. If conditions had been testing, chances are that it would have been the other way around.
It is practically impossible to create a situation whereby both the Flat and the jumps can stand up equally well at Listowel in the autumn, and this corner remains of the belief that it would improve the standard of racing and competitiveness if the festival reverted to five days.
Impending
From a business perspective, though, we know that isn't going to happen, as no track would willingly cough up the circa €100,000 that two days' racing generates in media rights money. Moreover, despite the impending pilgrimage to Croke Park yesterday, the crowds held up well, with over 27,000 turning up to witness Katie Walsh's tenacious and historic Kerry National triumph on Your Busy on Wednesday.
Friday's Ladies' Day crowd has tended to trump Wednesday's in recent years, but not this time. Purists will love that, and any day that a female competitor thwarts her male counterparts on a level playing field is far more worthy of the Ladies' Day title. Walsh is excellent at what she does - period.
Of course, in tandem with the inevitable lift that such glorious weather brings to attendance figures, the apparent improvement in the general economy may also have now be playing its part. We can only hope that proves to be a real and sustained development.
It was immensely satisfying to see the three valuable feature events at Listowel in the middle of the week go to relatively small-scale trainers, Co Meath-based colleagues John McConnell and George Stanley enjoying popular respective wins with Orgilgo Bay and Portrade.
James Nash was responsible for saddling Walsh's mount, and he also owned the 11-year-old, rugby legend Ronan O'Gara having seemingly given up on the often frustrating individual last year after some particularly disappointing turns. In becoming the third horse in three years to claim the lion's share of the €160,000 spoils having started the day as a reserve, Your Busy also brought back into focus the merits of an increasingly contentious replacement system, one that was brought front and centre by Carlingford Lough's cavalier coup in the 2013 Galway Plate.
If you had backed Wednesday's runner-up Pass The Hat with any of the bookmaking firms that included the reserves in their morning betting lists - ie most - you will have done so without factoring in the participation of the three substitutes down at the bottom.
In reality, you don't have any other option, so you would be entitled to feel annoyed not to be paid out when your selection got foiled by the reserve after Golden Wonder was scratched. If you wagered with one of the few remaining firms that bet, in effect, without reserves, lucky you.
Wednesday's outcome was another reminder of how the reserve system here can be extremely beneficial to a handful of owners and trainers on any given day, especially so in big races.
However, the problematic age of excessive balloting is no more, so it is worth revisiting whether Irish racing should persist with a system that habitually blindsides people who bet on the sport.
Too often it throws up consequences that have the potential to deter punters, though the authorities have a poor record of prioritising their collective need.
O'Meara's Louis crowned at Ayr
David O'Meara's ascent shows no sign of abating after Louis The Pious (10/1) plundered the Yorkshire-based handler another marquee triumph in Saturday's Ayr Gold Cup.
The Fermoy, Co Cork native enjoyed his first Group One win when G Force stormed to victory in Haydock's Sprint Cup earlier in the month, having last month secured a debut victory on home soil with Custom Cut at Leopardstown.
O'Meara was among those to bag a winner on the inaugural Irish Champions Weekend when Watchable edged out Zalty to justify favouritism in Sunday's €150,000 Sprint Handicap.
A former jump jockey, he has a reputation for improving other people's cast-offs, and all three of the above horses were formerly trained elsewhere.
Louis The Pious, which was responsible for his handler's first Royal Ascot win when holding on in the Buckingham Palace Stakes in June, began life with Kevin Ryan.
The six-year-old won for a first time since Ascot when scooting up the near-side rail under James Doyle in Saturday's prestigious handicap in a first-time visor, which was applied on the advice of Fran Berry, who rode him previously.
His trainer, who broke his Dubai duck in the spring and who doubled up with Earth Drummer (7/2 fav) on Saturday, also won this year's Great St Wilfrid with Out Do. Incredibly, O'Meara is now just four shy of his second century, having only begun training in 2010.
If there is a better rookie trainer on either side of the water right now, this correspondent doesn't know who it is.
Incidentally, Louis The Pious is owned by Donegal native Frank Gillespie, whose Ryan-trained The Grey Gatsby claimed Australia's scalp in such dramatic circumstances at Leopardstown last week.
Among Gillespie's four other horses in training is Jonjo O'Neill's Merry King, which finished fourth in the Scottish National at Ayr when last seen in April.
Chrome crashes to Pennsylvania defeat
California Chrome could manage only sixth behind pillar-to-post winner Bayern on his return from injury in the Pennsylvania Derby at Parx racecourse on Saturday night.
Art Sherman's Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes hero hadn't been seen since picking up a foot laceration in his failed Triple Crown bid at Belmont in June. He raced in the box seat behind Bayern on Saturday, but couldn't land a blow and tired in the straight.
Sherman confirmed that the Breeders' Cup Classic remains the chief target for a rags-to-riches horse that captured the public imagination prior to one of his owners becoming an internet sensation when he threw his toys out of the pram in a live interview straight after the Belmont defeat .
Gorey bows out quietly at Gowran
Apprentice Shane Gorey brought the curtain down on a 12-year career at Gowran Park yesterday.
Associated with the Dermot Weld stable since graduating from the Racing Academy and Centre of Education (RACE) in 2002, the three-pound claimer finished tenth on his last ride aboard Cupertino. The highlights of Gorey's career were wins in three of the Curragh's showpiece handicaps for Weld.
In 2006, he won the Irish Lincolnshire on Bawaader and the Joe McGrath Handicap on Tajneed, while he landed the 2008 Irish Cesarewitch on Suailce, which carried the colours of the then President, Mary McAleese. The NUI Maynooth student is to take up a position with Ibec. "I've been in college for the last four years to get my Master's in human resources and industrial relations," Gorey said. "I rode about 85 winners during my career and this will be a big change now."
Charlie Longsdon (@CharlieLongsdon): What a day - 3 winners, making it 5 from 5 in the last week. Thank you @noelfehily and @AidanColeman #welldoneteamhullfarm
Charlie Longsdon with a nod of gratitude to Co Cork-born duo Noel Fehily and Aidan Coleman after an across-the-card treble at Plumpton and Uttoxeter yesterday.
Numbers Game
13 - Years since Norman Mason's Nosam won at Listowel, the last English-based winner at the Harvest Festival prior to Me And Ben's victory on Saturday. Trained by Limerick native Fergal O'Brien, who is based in Gloucestershire, the Conor Shoemark-ridden mare is owned by Michael Fahy, who has close ties with Rathbarry Stud in Cork and who co-owned the 2009 Fred Winter Hurdle winner Silk Affair.
2.85million - What Ol' Man River cost at Goffs in October. The Curragh maiden winner is one of 16 Ballydoyle entries in Saturday's Juddmonte Royal Lodge Stakes at Newmarket, with other classy prospects like Highland Reel and John F Kennedy also still engaged.
