Super Jacob treble
Big wins too for Flanagan and Codd
THE AINTREE Grand National meeting was a real success story for Wexford jockeys, with Daryl Jacob scoring a wonderful Group 1 treble.
In addition, Seán Flanagan had his first Group 1 win in Britain when he edged out Jacob in the Ryanair Stayers’ Hurdle, and Jamie Codd won the Grade 2 mares’ bumper on the opening day.
For me, the Wexford highlight was the £180,000 Ryanair race prior to the Grand National on Saturday. Flanagan had advised trainer Henry De Bromhead to up Identity Thief to three miles for the first time and he was proved right.
He and Jacob on Wholestone (7/2) joined battle up the home straight and Identity Thief (14/1) found plenty to pull clear by five lengths. It was wonderful to see the two Wexford riders, born within a few miles of each other, embrace with genuine delight after pulling up.
De Bromhead gave Flanagan full credit. ‘You dream, but I wasn’t expecting that. It was Seán’s plan…we said we would leave it to him how he wanted to ride him and fair play to Seán.’
This was the icing on a wonderful season for Flanagan who is on a best-ever 56 winners in Ireland to be fifth in the riders’ table.
He finished a highly respectable sixth an hour later in the National on Road to Riches (33/1) for Meade and the O’Learys, to pick up a very decent £30,000, more than you would get for winning most races.
I said several times in this column that I felt Daryl Jacob was in for a really good Cheltenham, but ground conditions and other things told against him and he had no Festival winner. However, it was a different story at Aintree and he had a remarkable three winners and two seconds in Grade 1 races for retaining owners, Simon Munir and Isaac Souede.
On Thursday he won the £250,000 feature, The Betway Aintree Hurdle, with a really clever ride on regular ‘bridesmaid’, L’Ami Serge (5/1), for Nicky Henderson. He took it up over the last and
Seán Flanagan on Identity Thief leads Daryl Jacob on Wholestone over the last in the £180,000 Ryanair Stayers’ Hurdle at Aintree on Saturday.
beat Robbie Power on Jessica Harrington’s Supasundae (11/10) by three lengths.
Earlier, in the £100,000 Doom Bar juvenile hurdle, Jacob cut out the running on We Have a Dream (2/1) and ran away from them in the finish to cruise home by seven lengths. Henderson and the owners were delighted and were daring to dream of next year’s Champion Hurdle.
In between those two races, the Davidstown man did his best to serve it up to Gold Cup second and hot favourite, Might Bite (4/5, in the £90,000 Betway Bowl Chase on the front running grey, Bristol De Mai (5/1), but he had to accept second.
There were huge Wexford connections to the winner of the opening race, the £100,000 Grade 1 Big Bucks Novice Chase, which saw Finian’s Oscar (5/2) battling home for Robbie Power and Colin Tizzard.
The horse was bred by Richard and Martin O’Keeffe at Newtown, Taghmon, out of Trinity Alley. He was trained up to win his maiden point-to-point by Denis Murphy (The Ballagh), ridden by Jamie Codd for then owner Edelle Logan, before being sold on to the late Alan Potts for a cool £250,000.
The day ended on a winning Wexford note when Jamie Codd steered John Queally’s (Waterford) Getaway Katie Mai (15/8f) to victory in the £45,000 Grade 2 mares’ bumper, coming through in the final furlong.
In Britain the professionals ride in the bumpers, and amateur Jamie put them in their place with a strong finish.
However, his success has come with a severe cost as the Aintree stewards hit him with an excessive 17-day riding ban for over-use of the whip, even though the vets reported no marks or abnormalities on the horse afterwards.
On Friday, Jacob, Henderson and Co. were back at it again, with a comfortable win in the £100,000 Grade 1 Betway Mildmay Novice Chase on Terrefort (3/1f). Jacob played a waiting game and came through to take it up at the last and asserted on the run-in to win.
J.J. Slevin was on Tower Bridge (8/1) for Joseph O’ Brien in the Grade 1 Sefton Novice Hurdle and picked up over £10,000 for third, behind winning favourite, Santini (6/4).
Jacob had picked up a much less glamorous winner at Market Rasen on Wednesday, aboard The Bottom Bar (7/4) in a £5,000 maiden hurdle, but they all count.
On the flat, Pat McDonald had a nice priced double at Kempton on Friday on Sea The Waves (4/1) and Spirit of Belle (12/1), and Pat Dobbs is home from the U.A.E. and eased his way back in with a couple of rides.
At home in Ireland, Paul Nolan kept his run going at Limerick on Thursday with a win by Rooster Byron (5/1) in a three-mile hurdle under Keith Sexton, and Liz Doyle had the clear winner of the bumper at Ballinrobe on Friday evening with Bois De Clamart (12/1) under rising Taghmon rider, Seán O’Keeffe, with Jamie Codd second on Ellemarie Holden’s Jackson Hill.
At Tramore on Sunday, Leonard Whitmore’s (Blackwater) wellbacked Kingsteel (14s into 5/1) just failed to get up by a short head against National heroes, Gordon Elliott and Davy Russell, on drifting Monatomic.
Aidan O’Brien has started to bring out his stable stars on the flat and is sure to have a big say again in the classics ahead.
THERE WAS a time, in the not too distant past, when the accepted way to settle a schoolyard dispute was via a fist fight. Clearly, any and all forms of violence should be condemned and avoided at all costs, but human nature dictates that tempers will rise from time to time and rows will ensue.
Normally, the protagonists would go at it hard until wiser heads broke up the scrap, with wounded pride and a few cuts and bruises the full extent of the damage.
That may have been the way it once was, but there’s a frightening dimension to disputes among the youth of today which is explored in ‘The Prince Of Peace’.
This book’s front cover sub-title is ‘The fight no father can prepare for’, and it refers to the sense of helplessness felt by English boxer Mark Prince when his talented 15-year-old son, Kiyan, was stabbed to death outside his school.
The victim was a very talented footballer who was on the books of London club Queens Park Rangers at the time, while his father had been a champion inside the ring after surviving a tough upbringing.
Kiyan had intervened when what seemed like a play fight involving a friend suddenly turned nasty, and he paid the ultimate price as he was knifed to death.
Not surprisingly, his father was devastated, and the pain of that day will never leave him.
However, he has managed to channel some of his negative energy into a positive by establishing the Kiyan
Prince Foundation which is dedicated to educating young people and tackling the knife culture that has resulted in far too many deaths in the major cities in England in particular.
When Mark was a young boxer he fought in order to provide for his family, but the wheel has turned full circle. Shortly after Kiyan’s death, and by now in his early 40s, he returned to the ring but this time the aim was to raise funds for the foundation.
The book generally follows a chronological path, and it outlines a grim childhood for Mark and his siblings as their father was a tyrant behind closed doors, prone to explode with an unexplained rage at any given moment and inflict physical pain on his family.
Even his sister was targeted, and one instance when she received a nasty eye injury courtesy of her cowardly father’s belt makes for a particularly unpalatable segment of the book.
It’s perhaps no surprise that Mark was drawn to petty crime and drugs in his late teenage years as a result, but he found redemption in the boxing ring like so many others in this position.
And he developed into a very talented fighter, winning the WBO light heavyweight intercontinental title in the late 1990s.
He had a chance to defend it against Chris Eubank, one of the truly big names of the era, but it never came to pass.
Mark was offered a £25,000 purse but wanted double that amount, and the bout fell through the cracks as agreement couldn’t be reached between the rival promoters. It marked a turning point in his career, and it’s a decision he regrets to this very day.
It pales into utter insignificance, though, compared to the moment his world was shattered by Kiyans death. It took three trials before his assailant was sentenced to 13 years in prison, with the second one ending abruptly when Mark had words with a juror outside the court.
It’s a tragic tale on the whole, but it ends with the hope that Kiyan’s death won’t have been entirely in vain.
ALAN AHERNE
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