Dromahane graduates race to the top

THE Cheltenham Festival also highlighted many individual success stories from within point-to-pointing – three winners graduating from Pat Doyle’s pointing academy, fellow handlers Colin Bowe and Gerry Cosgrave producing a pair of winners each, the impact of point-to-point mares among others, and the successes in the saddle of the likes of Rachael Blackmore, Jordan Gainford and Sean O’Keeffe.

One other standout element of last week’s racing were the four Grade 1 winners that emerged from Dromahane.

The popular venue, which is situated within 10km of Cork Racecourse in Mallow and typically plays host to six or seven fixtures a season, provided landowners the O’Brien family with a great sense of pride as they watched Appreciate It, Honeysuckle, Vanillier and Gold Cup hero Minella Indo each go on to achieve festival success having won maidens there.

“It was great to see horses win here in the past go on to those better things,” said Maurice O’Brien, son of current landowners Billy and Nives O’Brien, 33 years after the course first featured on the point-to-point calendar.

Grandmother

“My grandmother was Joan Good, she was actually an accomplished amateur rider herself and would have ridden plenty of winners and the land was in her family originally and then she married my grandfather and became O’Brien back in the late 1940s.

“It’s our backyard and we are very proud of the place. It’s like everything, it doesn’t just happen we take a lot of care of it and it is a credit to the committees and everyone involved with it – long may it last.”

The former head ground man at the nearby racecourse in Mallow for six years, has an appreciation for the test that Dromahane sets a horse with that deceptive climb in the home straight likened most to Naas, The day that both Appreciate It and Minella Indo won their point-to-points within 30 minutes of each other in March 2018, is a day that particularly stands out for him.

“It was a day that we were put to the pin of our collar with the snow. If memory serves me correctly I am sure that I sent Richard Pugh a picture of the track early that morning at about 8am when there was no snow on the track, but there was snow all over the rest of the country. Next thing at about 11am the clouds opened and down it came.

“To be fair to the Turf Club on the day and the senior jockeys, everyone agreed that it was safe and it just goes to show if that meeting had been cancelled we might never have had those two runners there, anything could have happened.

“What happened last week then was incredible stuff. It’s not just from a Dromahane point of view, we are a point-to-point family in general and enjoy the game and everyone that is involved in it.

“You love to see any point-to-pointer from whatever track that it is, be it Necarne down to Clonakilty all going on to do well, but I suppose it is the icing on the cake for us as a family to see one from Dromahane.”

Irish point-to-point winners at Cheltenham 2021

Grade 1 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle

Appreciate It (Pat Doyle)

Won four-year-old maiden at Dromahane, March 2018

Grade 1 Arkle Chase

Shishkin (Virginia Considine)

Won four-year-old maiden at Lingstown, November 2018

Grade 1 Champion Hurdle

Honeysuckle (Gerry Cosgrave)

Won four-year-old mares’ maidan at Dromahane, April 2018

Grade 1 Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle

Bob Olinger (Pat Doyle)

Won four-year-old maiden at Turtulla, November 2019

Grade 1 Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase

Monkfish (Cormac Doyle)

Won four-year-old maiden at Stowlin, April 2018

Grade 1 Champion Bumper

Sir Gerhard (Ellmarie Holden)

Won four-year-old maiden at Boulta, November 2019

Grade 1 Marsh Novices’ Chase

Chantry House (Colin Bowe)

Won four-year-old maiden at Tattersalls, December 2018

Grade 2 Mares Novices’ Hurdle

Telmesomethinggirl (Colin Bowe)

Won four-year-old maiden at Ballinaboola, February 2019

Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir

Mount Ida (Gerry Cosgrave)

Won four-year-old mares’ maiden at Tattersalls, December 2018

Grade 3 County Hurdle

Belfast Banter (Patrick Turley)

Second four-year-old maiden at Oldcastle, April 2019

Grade 1 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle

Vanillier (Sam Curling)

Won four-year-old maiden at Dromahane, December 2019

Grade 1 Cheltenham Gold Cup

Minella Indo (John Nallen)

Won five-year-old geldings’ maiden at Dromahane, March 2018

Grade 2 Mares’ Chase

Colreevy (Pat Doyle)

Fell four-year-old mares’ maiden at Lemonfield, March 2017