TWO of my very favourite racedays in the early part of each year take place at Gowran Park.

The Goffs Thyestes Chase day is one of the highlights of the season, and a day when people gather, midweek, from all parts of the country to celebrate a day at the races. The Connolly’s Red Mills team are also part of that day.

However, the family-owned company, based just up the road from Gowran at Goresbridge, also have a special day at the Co Kilkenny track in February, a day on which they entertain customers and friends while adding their name to two important races on the card. They are the Red Mills Chase and the Red Mills Hurdle, both Grade 2 contests.

The respective races have been won by some of Irish racing’s superstars over the years, and hopefully the winners next weekend will also take their place in the pantheon of racing greats. Sadly, this year the extended Connolly family, led by the brother Joe and Bill, will not be on hand next Saturday to meet and greet.

However, you can be part of the build-up to the big day, and the company has come up with a great idea to whet your appetite for next weekend’s racing. They will be putting out interviews with people closely connected to five prominent winners of the two feature races, all conducted by Dave Keena.

The videos all provide some wonderful insights into the horses in question, memories of their wins at Gowran Park, and they include race footage and old photographs, skilfully knitted together to provide you with great memories.

The five featured horses, and those being interviewed, are – in alphabetical order – Champagne Fever with Patrick Mullins and the gelding’s breeder Sea Cahill, Danoli and Tommy Treacy, Hardy Eustace and Conor O’Dwyer, Rathgar Beau and Shay Barry with Dusty Sheehy, and Un De Sceaux with Colm O’Connell.

Champagne Fever

Champagne Fever graduated from the point-to-point sphere to become a Grade 1-winning bumper and hurdle horse. While none of his four chase victories were at Grade 1 level (he was second, beaten a head, in the Arkle at Cheltenham), he did win the Grade 2 Red Mills Chase in style under Paul Townend. Sold for €17,500 by Sean Cahill as a store, he went on to earn £275,000 for Rich and Susannah Ricci.

It is 25 years ago, incredibly, when Tommy Treacy partnered the Tom Foley-trained Danoli to an eight-length victory over Sue Magnier’s Tiananmen Square in the Red Mills Hurdle, then a Grade 3 race but subsequently upgraded. Six times Danoli visited the winners’ enclosure after winning a Grade 1, and it is safe to say he was one of the most popular horses to race in Ireland in the last half a century.

Dessie Hughes twice used the Red Mills Hurdle as the final warm-up race for assaults by Hardy Eustace on the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, both times winning in the Cotswolds. The seven-time Grade 1 winner was beaten a short-head by Georges Girl in 2004, but a year later he won by 25 lengths.

Rathgar Beau

Two months after Rathgar Beau won the Grade 2 Red Mills Chase, he gained the biggest success of his career in the Grade 1 Champion Chase at Punchestown. Both times he was ridden by Shay Barry, and that jockey also was associated with Danoli during his career.

Finally, Un De Sceaux has been one of the best-known chasers of the past decade, his 13 wins including 10 at Grade 1 level. However, did you know that, apart from his wins in France, he only once won at graded level over hurdles in Ireland and Britain? That was his 2014 win in the Grade 2 Red Mills Hurdle at the prohibitive odds of 1/14!

The daily videos can be viewed on the Red Mills and The Irish Field social media outlets, starting on Monday, February 15th.