FAIRYHOUSE. Mention the word and the first thought for many, even those with just a passing interest in racing, will be Irish Grand National.

This year the Easter Festival will run from Saturday, April 3rd to Monday 5th, but Peter Roe and his team will have an incredibly busy time in the run up that feature meeting. Indeed, over an eight-week period during January and February the course will play host to six meetings.

Starting tomorrow, it will welcome industry professionals on no fewer than four of the five weekends in the first month of 2021. At three of these fixtures the feature race will be run in honour of some of the best-known figures in the sport, and also commemorate an outstanding racemare under National Hunt rules.

Tomorrow’s Grade 3 John and Chich Fowler Memorial EBF Mares Chase remembers a couple who lived and operated from Rahinston House in Summerhill. Today the place is home to Harry Fowler and his wife Lorna. The couple continue a family tradition that extends back more than 60 years producing racehorses.

The estate covers over 700 acres and some of the best-known graduates of the farm include Opera Hat, Banjaxed Girl, Bankers Benefit, Woodland Opera, Yulong Baobei, Kalanisi Circle, Champers On Ice, Duke Of Medina, Barters Hill and Almigdam. What a pity that current restrictions mean Harry and his brother Charlie are not able to be present to congratulate the winning connections.

On Saturday, January 16th, the Dan and Joan Moore Chase, a Grade A handicap worth €75,000, commemorates a couple who, individually and together, have left a lasting mark on the world of racing. The influence they exerted on the training ranks, and following Joan’s tenure as manager of Punchestown racecourse, is still felt today.

Dan and Joan’s son Arthur and daughter, Pamela Carberry, through their children also, have ensured that the family continues to have an impact.

It is wholly appropriate of course that this feature race run in their honour is across the road from the Tattersalls Ireland sales complex. This was established on the site of the former Old Fairyhouse Stud and it was there that Dan trained for many years.

Such is the impact that the extended family has had on racing that the main race at the February 27th meeting in Fairyhouse is the Grade 3 Bobbyjo Chase. The race commemorates the winner of the 1999 Grand National at Aintree. The gelding was owned by Bobby Burke from Co Galway and so-called by combining his name with that of his wife Jo.

Bobbyjo was trained for his greatest win by Tommy Carberry, husband of Pamela, and ridden by the couple’s son Paul. The year prior to his Aintree success Bobbyjo had already established himself as a favourite when he won the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse. His win at Liverpool reversed a long, barren period for Irish-trained winners of the world’s best known race.

In fact, it was 24 years before that 1999 victory when an Irish-trained horse had last won the Aintree Grand National, and L’Escargot was ridden by Tommy Carberry for his father-in-law, Dan Moore.

The Bowe family’s Solerina was a great racing favourite and their homebred daughter of Toulon won 22 of her 40 starts. All but four of her victories were gained over hurdles and she deservedly has a race named in her honour at Fairyhouse as it was there that she won the Grade 1 Hatton’s Grace Hurdle on three occasions. No fewer than 13 of those 18 wins were in graded hurdle races.

Hopefully the team at Fairyhouse will have a fair wind when it comes to weather conditions and that they stage some great action for the many stay-at-home racing fans who will be glued to their television sets in search of future champions.