Salt of the earth!
Kilmore man’s winning partnership
OLD SALT is the appropriate name for a horse with seaside connections; owned and bred by Billy Bates, of Newtown, Kilmore Quay, he was the 9/2 winner of a maiden hurdle at Ludlow on Monday, ridden by Paul Moloney for Welshbased trainer, Evan Williams.
I had a chat with Billy Bates to find out a bit more.
Old Salt had three point-to-point outings in Ireland in the spring, getting third in the last at Lisronagh under Mark Scallan from Cleariestown , before moving to the Williams yard in Wales. They hope he can go on from this initial success.
Billy has had an association with Evan Williams for quite a while, most successfully with Roadie Joe which has won five times in nine outings since completing an undistinguished pointing career in the spring of 2015.
He had won a point race at his local Lingstown track under Benny Walsh in November 2014, from a big field of 17 runners. Billy says he could have been bought for small money a few months later, but he was turned down by a syndicate of Wicklow lads.
How they must be regretting that now but such is the luck involved in racing. Roadie Joe won four races in a row in 2015 after moving to Williams, culminating in the Grade 2 Persian War novice hurdle at Chepstow.
He actually ran in the Martin Pipe handicap hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival this year and ran a reasonable race before coming down at the second last. Billy and a group of his friends made the trip over and really enjoyed the Festival experience.
Roadie Joe was given a break but made a winning start to his chasing career at Worcester in September and connections are confident there are more races to be won with him.
Billy, who runs stone firm, Inish Pebble, at Kilmore Quay, has been in horses for about 15 years and has 15 in training with Brian Jordan and Darragh Berry at their Rathangan stables which they hope to run in point to points after Christmas.
He is hoping that at least some of them will graduate to bigger things.
Roadie Joe was down to run in the 2.40 at Ludlow on Monday (yesterday) and was well fancied.
There were some local links on the high-class Navan card on Sunday which was dominated by Gordon Elliott who took six of the seven races on offer, at accumulated odds of 41,277 to 1.
The last of the six was piloted by Jamie Codd in the listed €40,000 bumper, winning by three lengths on Threeswallowsnick (13/8). The pair had won their first bumper at Wexford on October 30.
The unbeaten horse had also won his two point-to-point outings last season, at Borris and Durrow, when owned by Enniscorthy publican, Nick Doyle, giving Ivan Walker from Bunclody his first two wins as a trainer.
Earlier, Elliott and Bryan Cooper had won the day’s feature, the 25-runner, €100,000 Ladbrokes Troytown Chase, very convincingly with Empire of Dirt (12/1). This horse was trained by now retired Colm Murphy when he won two fiercely-competitive races, the Leopardstown Chase and a handicap chase at the Cheltenham Festival, both £100,000 races.
Elliott said the horse ‘had come highly recommended from Colm Murphy and really I’ve only had to keep him sound in his training’. Empire of Dirt will now be aimed at the Aintree Grand National.
Seán Flanagan was a game third on Noel Meade’s Bonny Kate (12/1) in the Troytown and he earlier had a couple of other seconds for Meade behind the unstoppable Elliott juggernaut.
In Britain last week, Daryl Jacob from Davidstown was the man in form on Saturday, scoring a hattrick in the high-profile Fighting Fifth meeting at Newcastle - Elgin (9/4) for Alan King, Domperignon Du Lys (10/11 fav.) for Nicky Henderson, and Calett Mad (11/4 fav.) for Nigel Twiston-Davies.
Tom O’Brien won at Towcester on Thursday aboard Sister Sibyl (11/4) for Hughie Morrison, while Jonathan Moore was an easy winner on Relentless Dreamer (8/1) for Rebecca Curtis at Taunton.
Moore was second in the big novices chase at Newbury on Saturday on Bigbadjohn for Curtis, behind 1/8 hotshot, Thistlecrack.
Tom O’Brien had to be patient as his Newbury winner came in the last race, the £35,000 Jim Joel Handicap Chase, on Ultragold for the in-form Colm Tizzard yard.
He recovered from a bad blunder at the second last and O’Brien got him back up in a driving finish.