Mac on big stage
Doncaster delight for Taghmon jockey
BRITISH-BASED jockey Pat McDonald, from Monastery Avenue, Taghmon, took the chance to showcase all his considerable skills on the big stage at the televised Doncaster St. Leger meeting last week with a series of terrific rides, and Enniscorthy’s Pat Dobbs also got in on the act.
McDonald has been having a great season, as regularly covered in these columns, which has seen him ride over 80 winners since January, and he is in the top ten in the British jump jockeys’ championship.
On Friday he was involved in two protracted head-to-head duels with Ryan Moore that drew fulsome praise from all the critics.
In the £70,000 Group 2 Flying Childers sprint, McDonald on Karl Burke’s Havana Grey (1/1f) and Moore on Clive Cox’s Heartache (6/4) drew well clear of the rest and Moore edged ahead in the final few yards of a gripping struggle between two very good two-year-olds.
They were at it again in the next, the £40,000 William Hill Mallard handicap over a mile and six, and this time victory went to the Taghmon man in dramatic circumstances.
He took it up well over two furlongs out on Mark Johnston’s well-backed favourite, Time To Study (11/8), and battle was quickly joined by Moore on the strong-travelling Byron Flyer.
It looked like Moore was going to get there, especially when McDonald lost one of his reins when changing his whip one hundred yards out, but the Wexfordman showed great strength to keep his horse going and he held on by a head.
He was the centre of lots of media attention in the parade ring after this effort.
The previous day, McDonald and Dobbs shared the limelight, winning successive Group 2 races with exceptional rides.
First up was McDonald in the £70,000 two-year-old fillies William Hill May Hill Stakes.
He was on the well-backed Laurens (7/2 into 11/4) for the inform Karl Burke and came with a superbly-timed run to nab his rivals on the line in a head-bobber, with two heads and a neck between the first four.
Half an hour later it was the turn of Pat Dobbs and the styles could not have been more contrasting - he led nearly all the way on Ralph Beckett’s Alyssa to pull off a 25/1 shocker in the £90,000 long-distance fillies Park Hill Stakes over one mile six furlongs.
Alyssa was headed close home but horse and jockey showed great grit and determination to get back up to win by half a length from the dead-heating Frankie Dettori and Oisín Murphy on Aljezeera and Melodic Motion.
‘Pat gave her a super ride,’ Beckett said, especially as the horse is not the easiest to handle. ’She’s a proper madam to train … she’s never been easy her whole life, but she’s tough.’
It was back to more mundane fare at Chester on Saturday and McDonald’s best was second on the well-backed Marsh Pride (6/1 from 12s) for Karl Burke in a Class 4 handicap, while Dobbs had one unsuccessful ride at Lingfield.
Pat Dobbs was at Ffos Las on Sunday but had to be content with a couple of seconds and a third, including being turned over on a 1/2 shot.
Veteran Jimmy Fortune from Ferns had a winner from just two rides at Epsom on Thursday with a good-priced front runner, Lady Perignon (14/1), scoring by half a length for trainer Andrew Balding.
National Hunt jockey Tom O’Brien from Adamstown does not get many rides at the famous Epsom derby track but took part in the Lexus Jump Jockeys’ Derby over the famous course and came in third on Bamako Du Chatelet (14/1) for Ian Williams.
O’Brien had a winner for Williams over hurdles at Uttoxeter on Wednesday, getting Cool Sky (5/4f) home by three parts of a length despite some sketchy jumping.
Earlier in the week, McDonald had a double on Tuesday evening at Newcastle, on Ed Dunlop’s well-backed Sileel (7/2jf) in the inelegantly-named 42nd Street Classic Sausage Fish & Chips fillies’ handicap, and Chrisellaine (3/1f) for Charles Hills.
That same afternoon in Worcester, Jonathan Moore (Adamstown) went over to ride one for Rebecca Curtis and J.P. McManus and made the trip worthwhile with a cosy success on Going For Broke (9/2).
ICAN still remember the morning in March, 2004, when a work colleague arrived in our office and announced: ‘isn’t that terrible news about the Tyrone footballer?’ I hadn’t heard the radio on my own short commute, so I was shocked to discover that All-Ireland winner and All Star Cormac McAnallen had died suddenly during the night.
The tragedy rocked the G.A.A. world to its core, with this versatile young star cut down at such a young age a mere six months after playing a very significant role in his county’s first-ever Sam Maguire Cup triumph.
His successful switch from midfield to the problematic full-back position was one of the key reasons behind the victory as the Eglish clubman completed a clean sweep of national titles following previous successes in the Minor and Under-21 grades.
He had earned an All Star award for his heroic displays, having been selected as national young footballer of the year in 2001.
It looked like McAnallen was destined to be the mainstay of Tyrone teams for many years to come, but his life was cruelly ended owing to an undetected heart condition.
It seems hard to credit that it’s more than 13 years since that shocking turn of events when a gifted young sportsman was taken from his heartbroken family without any prior warning.
However, his deeds will never be forgotten, and now his brother, Dónal, has penned a deeply moving account in ‘The
Pursuit Of Perfection - The Life, Death and
Legacy of Cormac McAnallen’.
This book will tug at the reader’s heartstrings, especially the chapter outlining that fateful night when Dónal was burning the midnight oil in the family home and heard a sound from upstairs that he later realised was his brother’s death rattle.
Even though we are fully aware of the incredibly sad outcome, it’s still a gripping account of a tragic occurrence, written with perception by Cormac’s sibling who had to go through this truly horrific experience as panic and helplessness set in during the early hours of the morning.
While I have never met Dónal face to face, I have exchanged e-mails with him over the years owing to our mutual interest in programme collecting.
He is a prolific writer, mainly on matters of historical interest, and he deserves the highest commendation for his work in completing this remarkable insight into the factors that made Cormac achieve his lifelong sporting dreams.
They were close in age and grew up playing together on various club and school teams, and that tight bond is evident in every page.
Cormac kept detailed diaries so we are able to share his inner-most thoughts as several extracts are published throughout.
He was meticulous in his approach to every aspect of life, and his competitive streak was so strong that he would regularly sit down with his mother at home to watch ‘University Challenge’, complete with pen and paper to mark their own individual scores.
In the last years of his life, Cormac sustained some head injuries in a few games, and the book doesn’t shy away from wondering if these may have contributed to his sad demise.
And in the aftermath of that All-Ireland win in 2003, his diary was full to overflowing with commitments as he was in such strong demand in Tyrone and further afield to attend various functions.
This is a book well worth reading. It will likely move you to tears at times, and it is certainly the most intimate and heart-rending account of a G.A.A. hero I can ever recall. Put simply, Dónal McAnallen has done a wonderful job on a most difficult subject.
ALAN AHERNE
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