PAUL Carberry, Graham Bradley, Adrian Maguire and Michael Winters are just some of the riders that are set to feature at what is being billed as the Pat Smullen Legends Race for Cancer at Bellharbour point-to-point in Co Clare on Sunday February 2nd.

Set against the picturesque backdrop of the Burren, the Co Clare fixture has gone from strength to strength in recent years and next month’s fundraising efforts will ensure that it will be one of the fixtures of the season.

That quartet will be joined in the line-up by Jason Titley, Brian Hassett, Ken Whelan, Tom Costelloe, Bryan Murphy, Tom Keating, John Staunton, Brian McMahon, Pauric O’Connor and Norman Lee, alongside English raiders Willy Twiston Davies and Ryan Hatch. They are all coming out of retirement to raise funds for Cancer Trials Ireland with a GoFundMe page having been set up. Anyone who donates a minimum of €5 will be entered into a draw to win one of two standout prizes – a pair of Frankie Dettori’s signed racing boots or a signed or a framed photograph featuring Ruby Walsh, Sir A.P. McCoy, Paul Carberry, Charlie Swan and Joseph O’Brien, riding out ahead of the Pat Smullen Irish Champions Weekend Legends race.

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TOMORROW’S card at Tinahely features something of a rarity in point-to-points, with a winners’ race that is confined to novice riders.

While never amounting to anything more than a handful of races in previous years, with the Route and Muskerry hunts in particular having previously supported them, such races for novice riders gradually disappeared from the provisional summary, with the Muskerry Foxhounds’ fixture at Dawstown back in May 2011 one of the last race meetings to host such a contest.

Point-to-point racing is not only about providing opportunities to bring through young horses, but also has an important role in the education of young riders too. A race programme which provides them with a good supply of opportunities aboard suitable horses, affords them with the best foundation in race-riding.

Inexperienced

The races that feature in novice rider races has proven to be a consistent talking point in recent times, with many feeling that restricting the majority of novice riders races to older maidens, as has been the case in previous years, is not ideal, with these inexperienced riders finding themselves on what are the lowest quality of horses in the sport.

Recently, to address this, additional open races have been restricted to novice riders, and last month’s race at Borris House is an example of the benefits that providing these opportunities aboard experienced schoolmasters has had. Fifteen of the 17 runners in the big field race completed, with no fallers or riders unseated.

A call for winners’ races to be included in the programme for novice riders is one that has come consistently from riders that fall into this category, particularly in favour of older maiden races, and it now seems that striking a balance between older maidens, winners’ races and opens, would seem to be the fairest approach.

The Shillelagh & District committee certainly have to be applauded for their move, switching the novice riders race from the seven and upwards geldings’ maiden to the winner-of-one.

The race itself received a total of 16 entries, second only on the card to the five- and six-year-old geldings’ maiden, and it compares favourably with the similar winner-of-one at Aghabullogue on the same afternoon. That race received seven fewer entries than the Tinahely contest, suggesting that owners and handlers were not put off by the race having novice rider status this year.

In all, there are 72 winners’ races programmed for the spring point-to-point season, but tomorrow’s at Tinahely is the only one confined to novice riders.

Hopefully, further committees will be encouraged to follow the Shillelagh’s lead for next season.

Baragry touched off by a short-head

ONLY a photo finish denied Shane Baragry, who was in the winner’s enclosure at Ballindenisk on Sunday, from a first winner on British soil, when his first ride across the Irish Sea was touched off by a short-head on New Year’s Eve.

The Castlelyons native was aboard the Fergal O’Brien-trained Lies About Milan in the Uttoxeter & Cheadle Voice maiden hurdle at Uttoxeter, and the pair jumped the penultimate flight in front only to be denied by the reigning four-time British champion Richard Johnson in a thrilling finish.

Baragry entered the race with a 100% record aboard the eight-year-old, who is owned by Englishman Dave Shorey, as the son of Milan was sent out by his father Jerry to win an older geldings’ maiden at Moig South on his debut in November.

“Dave (Shorey) would have had a couple of point-to-pointers with local lads, the likes of Padraig Higgins, so he sent us Lies About Milan in June,” explains the 21-year-old rider.

“We were only meant to be pre-training him, but then Dave said that we had him so long, and that as he was ready to run, that we may as well run him in a point-to-point. So we got him to run in the point-to-point and he won, thankfully.

“He wanted to bring him back over to England then to go chasing in the future, but after we won with him, he said that I could ride him when he runs over in England and thankfully he kept to his word and I went over and rode him in Uttoxeter.”

Supporters

Baragry was not short of supporters for the trip, as he was accompanied by his mother, father and sister, who were all brought for a tour of the O’Brien yard ahead of racing, and although they narrowly missed out on visiting the number one spot, compensation soon followed with last week’s winner at Ballindenisk for one of his principal supporters Batt O’Connell.

That victory of Truckers Angel, a second of the season for Baragry, who rides out for O’Connell, Paul O’Connell and also spends a day a week with banks supremo Enda Bolger.

THE 2019/20 season is proving to be an incredible campaign for those horses that have graduated from the Irish point-to-point fields, with last weekend’s two Grade 1s the latest to be claimed by former pointers. On Saturday, Fiddlerontheroof, who ran in two four-year-old maidens for Shirley Berry, gave Colin Tizzard his third Tolworth Hurdle from the last four, followed by yet another top-class performance by Envoi Allen to win the Lawlors Of Naas Novice Hurdle, his seventh success since winning his four-year-old maiden at Ballinaboola for Colin Bowe and an 11th of the season in Grade 1 company for horses that had begun their careers pointing here.