Top weight Alhajjaj proves a fitting winner of handicap

ON a night when the charity with which she is synonymous, Shabra, was sponsoring, it was fitting that Rita Shah should have a winner at Dundalk, which came when 16/1 chance Alhajjaj, trained by Anthony McCann, ran away with the first division of the 10.5-furlong Dundalk Stadium Business Club Handicap in the hands of Jonathan Moore.

The Shabra Charity Foundation has, over the course of many years, raised over €600,000 for various health and educational projects and, in keeping with a promise made by much-missed Shabra co-founder Oliver Brady to Dublin’s Mater Hospital, most recently for specialist Genomic DNA Gene Sequencing Equipment.

Rita’s efforts, and those of all connect- ed with Shabra, are deeply commendable and greatly to be admired. May they have many more successes, on and off the track, in the years ahead.

The second division of the handicap also went to the top-weight, Edification (9/2), who was ridden by Conor Hoban. It was the first time that the six-year-old had run at beyond a mile for Kildare-based trainer Mark Fahey, who has only had him since November.

Rarely a Dundalk meeting goes by without Joseph O’Brien having a winner and he made it six for the year at the track (from 19 runners) with a treble.

Firstly, even-money favourite Stronghold, ridden by Seamie Heffernan, landed the card’s opener, the Irishinjuredjockeys. com Rated Race, by a neck from Fergal Birrane’s California Lad.

Winner number two was Colfer Me (5/4 fav), one of three top-weights in handicaps to win on the evening, who was a cosy winner of the Phone Alarms Handicap under Shane Foley, and the treble was completed when Altair (8/1), a daughter of Epsom and Irish Derby winner Australia, made a winning debut in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Fillies’ Maiden in the colours of Joseph’s mother, Annmarie. The winning jockey was Shane Crosse.

Shane’s brother, Nathan, also rode a winner on the card when the Anthony Mulholland-trained Victorious Secret (7/10 landed the Shabra Charity Foundation Handicap.

Shane Foley completed a double on the night when Confrontational (3/1 jointfav), who was winning for the third time at Dundalk and for the fourth time in total, won the Baroneracing.com Handicap for County Cork trainer John Murphy. In doing so he followed up a win at the venue seven days earlier.

And, as with last week, Britain went home with a winner when Master Diver (5/4 fav), trained in Newmarket by Sir Mark Prescott, won the Kennedys Bar & Restaurant Apprentice Maiden under Tom Madden.

The winner is out of a mare called Lottie Dod, whose sole career win came at Dundalk in 2014. In three runs at the venue for Charles O’Brien, she never finished outside of the first three.

Her son, who is by Mastercraftsman, one of the best horses ever to run at Dundalk, is clearly carrying on the family tradition.

Dundalk will race again on Friday February 1st, with a start time of 5:30pm (5pm if a race divides).

The feature race will be the €26,000 Windsor Bar & Restaurant Handicap, which will be run over a distance of ten furlongs. ‘The Windsor’ is a long-established business based on the Dublin Road in Dundalk and is particularly popular owing to the quality of its restaurant.

If you are ever there, check out the Dundalk race-card that dates back to the nineteenth century! You’ll find it on the wall by one of the counters.