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NAAS Racecourse is expecting a bumper crowd for its August public holiday meeting by offering racegoers free admission and a chance to win a trip to the Rugby World Cup.
The €300,000 Irish EBF Ballyhane Stakes is the feature race on the Monday card. The six-furlong median auction race is confined to two-year-olds whose sire established one or more yearling sales last year with a median price of not more than €75,000.
This is the fourth year of the race which last year was won by Joseph O’Brien’s Voce Del Palio, who was sold afterwards to race in Hong Kong. Future Grade 1 winner Victoria Road finished fourth. Fourth home in the 2020 edition was State Of Rest, who went on to win four Group/Grade 1 races.
The Irish EBF Ballyhane Stakes is the most valuable of the 24 races in the Irish EBF Median Sires Series. All of them carry the €75,000 median sire price restriction and there are allowances of up to 8lb for the cheaper horses. Every runner in the race will earn prize money.
Sweepstake
A sweepstake on the day will see each of the 24 runners in the race assigned to a racegoer who must be over 18. The person holding a ticket with the name of the winning horse will receive a two-night package for the Ireland-South Africa rugby match in Paris on September 23rd. The package includes return flights, hotel transfers, hotel B&B, pre-match lunch and two tickets for the game.
Joe Foley of Ballyhane Stud said: “Staging this race on a public holiday will allow more people the chance to attend. Everyone in racing is trying to encourage new people to try the sport and Naas is very proactive in that regard as well.
Amazing prize
“Free admission and the Rugby World Cup prize is likely to bring in people who are not regulars and one person is going to win an amazing prize in the sweepstake. The racing will be good and I know the racecourse has lot of other attractions planned too, so all that’s left is to hope for some decent weather on the day.”
Latest confirmations
A total of 28 horses remain in contention for the €300,000 Irish EBF Ballyhane Stakes and six are British-based runners.
One of those making the trip across to Naas on Monday is Jungle Mate, a Ballyhane bred son of Bungle Inthejungle who will represent Thirsk trainer Kevin Ryan.
Jungle Mate was a winner at Hamilton on debut and was second at Carlisle last time out and is set to tackle the €300,000 prize after pleasing his trainer this morning.
“Jungle Mate is in good form and did his final piece of work today and I was happy with him, so the plan is to run,” Ryan reported.
“The ground is an unknown for him, but you never know until you run them on it and I feel he is a progressive horse who is getting stronger and stronger. It’s a big prize so we will let him take his chance.”
British-based trainers have left with some prize money in the previous running’s of the Irish EBF Ballyhane Stakes and Ryan is hoping Jungle Mate could be his best candidate for the race.
“We’ve had a couple run in the race previously, but I think this fella could be our best chance yet. Shane Gray will go over and ride him. Shane knows him well, has ridden him in his two races and rode him in his work this morning and has ridden in Ireland so it makes sense.
“The horse is owned by the Bronte Collection who are all friends of Steve Parkin of Clipper Logistics and are getting great fun out of the game. They are a great bunch and are looking forward to Monday. It would be a nice race to win.”
The Aidan O’Brien-trained Brighter, Hugo Palmer’s Golden Trick, Tom Dascombe’s Innvincible Friend and That’s For Sure, trained by Karl Burke, are the other previous winners still among the acceptors for the race.
For the John Murphy-trained duo of North Atlantic and Secret Sunday, the Ger Lyons-trained Ragga Bomb, Rehearsal for Jessica Harrington or Vestigia trained by Sheila Lavery, Monday’s Irish EBF Ballyhane Stakes could be a debut to remember as they all remain in consideration for the mammoth first prize.
Continued support
Naas Racecourse manager Eamonn McEvoy said: “It’s very exciting to have such a prize up for grabs on Irish EBF Ballyhane Stakes Day and the feature race deciding who will be packing their bags for Paris! Thank you to our sponsors for their continued support especially Ballyhane Stud for also sponsoring the gate on the day.”
This year, the card includes the Group 3 Ballyroan Stakes, a 12-furlong race usually staged at Leopardstown.
The 30 initial entries include the aforementioned Grade 1 winner Victoria Road, Irish Derby and Grand Prix de Paris runner-up Adelaide River, the top-class Rosscarbery, Roscommon listed winner Espionage, Royal Ascot winners Vauban and Okita Soushi, Royal Ascot runners-up Valiant King and Continuous, the Ger Lyons-trained Waltham and Paddy Twomey’s Moon De Vega.
McEvoy added: “How exciting it would be to see a potential Melbourne Cup winner come out of the race.”
Prior to racing there will be a Rugby & Racing panel which will be MC’d by Hugh Cahill and feature rugby pundits Bernard Jackman and current Munster coach Mike Prendergast as well as Kevin O’Ryan.
Racegoers will get the opportunity to see the 2023 Grand Slam and Six Nations Trophies won by the Irish team, and there will also be some free activities for children.
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