Keane lights up Dundalk
COLIN Keane pulled three wins clear of reigning champion Pat Smullen in this season’s Irish flat jockeys’ championship with a treble at Dundalk on Friday night.
His first two wins were for his boss Ger Lyons, My Mystique landing the first division of what looked a good fillies’ maiden and then Reckless Endeavour getting the better of Geological and even-money favourite Moviesta in the Crowne Plaza Race And Stay Race.
My Mystique runs in the colours of former trainer Homer Scott, who also stands My Mystique’s sire, Rajj, an unraced son of Danehill out of a champion three-year-old filly in Germany, at his Lisheen Stud in County Kildare.
Keane’s treble was completed by the Tom McCourt-trained Ben Rumson, who was winning for the third time in his last four flat runs when landing the card’s finale.
Champion trainer Aidan O’Brien also had two winners on the night, with both horses scoring impres- sively. I Can Fly looked a filly to follow when winning the second division of the fillies’ maiden under Seamie Heffernan on her racecourse debut and, in the hands of Aidan’s son Donnacha, War Decree sauntered to victory in the big race of the night, the €63,000 Group 3 Koffy Diamond Stakes generously sponsored by Koffy, artisan coffee roasters with their Head Office in Flurrybridge Enterprise Centre, Jonesborough.
There was talk of the big Breeders’ Cup meeting at Del Mar on November 3rd and 4th after the race for the good-looking son of War Front, who beat the two British raiders, Absolute Blast and Abingdon (the 7/4 favourite), into second and third places, respectively.
Around two lengths covered the first eight horses home in the card’s opening race, the Apprentice Handicap, with the Michael Halford-trained Yamato winning under Ross Coakley. Yamato is now two-from-two in mile handicaps at Dundalk.
Trained by Noel Meade and ridden by Shane Foley, Cocohulababy was a good winner of the Foran Equine Irish European Breeders Fund Auction Maiden for owner-breeder Liam Queally, and My Direction returned to winning ways when beating Jaqen H’Ghar by a neck in the 12-furlong Dundalk Stadium – Light Up Your Night Handicap in the hands of Oisin Orr. My Direction now has two wins from just three runs at Dundalk and the plan is to run him here again soon.
It was yet another winner for Ellemarie Holden, who is sending out plenty of winners from her stable of around nine horses in County Kilkenny.
Dundalk races again on Tuesday October 3rd and then Friday October 6th, when the feature races will be the €55,000 Irish Stallion Farms EBF Star Appeal Stakes (Listed Race) and a €30,000 fillies’ handicap.