Sports
Orgilgo Bay tipped for hurdle glory and McCoy’s selected mount can take Plate
IT’S a tip in itself. Champion trainer Willie Mullins is usually mob-handed when he plans an assault on National Hunt racing’s bigger prizes, but next Thursday he will rely on only one horse in the richest hurdle race in the country at Ballybrit.
Not only is strong ante post favourite Pique Sous the stable’s lone challenger for the €250,000 Guinness Galway Hurdle, but Mullins is also lining up the six-year-old grey for an audacious double attempt in the Betfred Ebor at York next month.
Winner of the Queen Alexandra Stakes at Royal Ascot in June, Pique Sous will be making his first appearance over jumps since being pulled up in last year’s Galway Hurdle when the heavy underfoot conditions conspired against Ruby Walsh’s mount.
Running off the same mark as 12 months ago, Pique Sous is already the hype horse for next Thursday’s highlight, but he will have to overcome a potentially numerically strong cross-channel raiding party, headed by top weight Purple Bay which romped home in the Summer Hurdle at Market Rasen last Saturday.
Apart from Purple Bay, trainer John Ferguson could also be represented by Parlour Games, Bordoni and Dubai Prince on his first ever visit to the Galway festival, while among other UK possibles are Alan King’s Mountbazon; the Seamus Mullins trained Fergal; Vulcanite, the second highest rated in the race; and Donald McCain’s in-form Gabrial The Great.
Though Pique Sous leads the strong home defence – at least in the minds of the bookmakers – punters will obviously be taking stock of other leading contenders such as Quick Jack which was last seen finishing third to Gilgamboa in the Boylesports.com Hurdle at Leopardstown back in January.
His trainer Tony Martin has never won the Galway Hurdle but the stable’s runners were in cracking form at last year’s festival chance. Furthermore, Quick Jack is currently set to carry only 9st 10lbs and could be a blot on the handicap.
Gordon Elliott’s Bayan, which was recently successful on the flat at Leopardstown and finished third in the Coral Cup at Cheltenham in March, also heads to Ballybrit with a strong profile, but the one we like best at longer odds is John McConnell’s Orgilgo Bay, assuming the four-year-old makes the final cut.
An honorable third in the Fred Winter Hurdle at the Cheltenham festival, Orgilgo Bay pulverised an admittedly modest field at Downpatrick earlier this month and though winning the Galway Hurdle is a big ask for a four-year-old, Perugino Diamond showed it could be done in 2000.
Top owner JP McManus saw his colours fill the first three places in last year’s Galway Plate with Carlingford Lough and Tony McCoy leading the way, and it’s clear from the original entries that the Limerick native is anxious for more glory in the €200,000 showpiece next Wednesday.
McManus, incredibly, is is responsible for 14 of the 59 entries, with Kid Cassidy, now trained by Christy Roche and second in the Grand Annual in Cheltenham in 2013, heading the weights. Naturally, racegoers will be keeping a close eye on which horse McCoy ends up riding, but it would be no surprise if he opts for It’s A Gimme, an impressive scorer in the Summer Plate at Market Rasen last Saturday.
The Dessie Hughes trained Art Of Logistics is another of the leading ante post fancies, but was unimpressive in justifying cramped odds of 2/9 in Punchestown in early June, while Charlie Byrnes has already indicated that his novice, Domination, a winner at Royal Ascot may skip the race as he is unhappy with the horse’s handicap mark.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Galway United 6
Finn Harps 0
GALWAY United marked their 800th competitive game at Eamonn Deacy Park in style on Monday evening when they smashed six goals without reply past hapless, hopeless Harps, to remain 10 points clear at the top of the table at the half-way point in the season.
A stunning couple of hours, both in terms of the weather and the football played by the home side, started on a more sombre note when three people with strong links to United were remembered in a minute’s silence that was impeccably observed.
Paul Cahill from Shantalla (and formerly of Cahill’s Shop on Cooke’s Corner) was a lifelong United who died suddenly while on holiday in Thailand, and he was remembered before the game; as was Salthill native Pat Diskin, a freelance journalist who covered United across three decades from the 1980s to the 2000s.
The thoughts of everyone in the ground were also with Bernie Ward, who buried her sister, Bridget Sweeney, on the morning of the game. Bernie’s husband, Mike, owns the catering trucks that serve at food at every United home game, and Bernie works tirelessly at every United home game, feeding the fans.
United paid tribute to that trio with a stunning opening to the game, which saw the three points wrapped up before we had even reached 20 minutes at the clock, by which time visiting goalkeeper, Tim Hiemer, had picked the ball out of the net four times.
There were four changes to the side which had been held to a 1-1 draw by Bray Wanderers at the Carlisle Grounds on Friday night. Rob Slevin was sent off in that game on two yellow cards and so served an automatic one-match ban on Monday.
Conor O’Keeffe picked up a nasty gash on his face thanks to a stray Bray Wanderers elbow and missed out on Monday; while Francely Lomboto and Vince Borden dropped to the bench, the first game all season that Borden has not started.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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The Salthill Fives came back in style at the weekend when crowds thronged Salthill Park for two days of non-stop football and entertainment.
Salthill Park was transformed with three 5-a-side pitches, a food village, music in the bandstand, pilates, yoga, circuits, kids coaching sessions, football KitBox with their unusual shirts, and the barbershop where hair and beards were trimmed all weekend; while Croí was on site as designated charity partners offering free blood pressure checks.
The centre-piece, however, was the actual football, which saw three tournaments held over the weekend: competitions for U-13 boys and U-13 girls, and the main event, the men’s tournament, with Deputy Mayor, Cllr Mike Cubbard, on hand to present the medal’s after the various finals.
Marvoy’s Classic Seven emerged as victors with former Galway United star, Padraic Cunningham, scoring the winning goals as they came from a goal down to beat Corrib Rangers. To cap a perfect weekend for the Headford native, he was also awarded the Diarmuid Fadden Player of the Tournament Award.
The ‘Ray Healy’ award for fair play was awarded by the referees to Eoin Roche of Smack your Pitch Up, who was presented with his award by Ray’s mother Christine; while a new award this year, The Spirit of the Fives in memory of Pat ‘Chippy’ Colman, was presented to Jimmy Jennings of Corrib Rangers.
Speaking on the pitch after the final, Salthill Devon Chairman Pete Kelly, thanked everybody who made the event possible.
“Where would we be without sponsors? Ground & Co came on board as main sponsors; Seven Bar, Seapoint Leisure and Blackrock Cottage were pitch sponsors with the boys and girls being sponsored by Dough bros and Curry’s Funfair.
“In addition, the support of the Village Salthill and the Salthill Devon committee made the ‘Return of the Fives’ a resounding success. The support of the Galway City Council was, as ever, an invaluable element in the entire operation – these partnerships can deliver quality events for the city, and planning has already started for 2024,” he said.
A week after hitting the half-way point in the First Division campaign, the league is set to enter its annual two-week midseason break after this Friday’s round of fixtures, and taking all three points on offer from their trip to Ferrycarrig Park to take on Wexford FC (7.45pm) will see United’s players heading for the country’s airports with a spring in their step.
The players are understood to be getting a week away from the weekly routine of collective training – though they will be expected to do their own little bits and pieces while they down tools – and they won’t want to sour the holiday mood by dropping points against a side they have beaten twice already this season.
It took them a while to make their dominance count on the scoreboard in the first meeting between the sides back in April, but once David Hurley opened the scoring in first-half injury-time in Ferrycarrig Park, there was only going to be one winner, and second-half goals from Francely Lomboto, Darren Clarke, and Vince Borden sealed a 4-0 win.
They were far more comfortable than the final 2-0 scoreline suggests in the second meeting between the sides in May, when the visitors to Eamonn Deacy Park parked the bus in trying to keep the score down, which they at least managed to achieve.
They will welcome United to their home patch on a bit of decent form, having taken seven points from their last three games, and they possess a real thereat in Aaron Dobbs, a man who would look great in a United jersey not only in the second-half of this season, but in the top-flight next year as well.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
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Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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