Search Results for 'Dawn Run'

I have often heard my grandmother say that the fun of Galway races began when you were hauled up onto a sidecar, behind a lively pony, and driven at a smart pace to Ballybrit. Passengers held on tightly to each other, or to the wooden seat, as the smell of horse, and the jolting ride over rough roads gave it a carnival atmosphere. The races were a two-day meeting then yet the jarvies, or ponymen, would hang about the town for the week hoping to get a fare. As well as bringing racegoers to Ballybrit in the mornings, and home in the evenings, they also brought them to Salthill. Sometimes they carried them to the dogtrack at College Road. Either way it was a long and busy week for the ponymen who came mainly from the Moycullen area, renowned for its Connemara ponies, and passionate owners.

Willie Mullins has won more important races at the Cheltenham festival than the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys' Handicap Hurdle. However, I'm sure that very few winners he trains there will give the wider Mullins family greater satisfaction than seeing Sir Des Champs come from an almost impossible position, to secure victory in the final strides, in the second last race of last week's festival. For this observer, it was a fitting finale to what had been a wonderful week for Irish trained horses, and particularly those of Kilkenny man, Willie Mullins.

Despite the present economic crisis, thousands of Irish people flocked to Cheltenham for the four-day festival that concludes today.