ROUND-UP Codds score family double
HORSE RACING First win of season for Latta
THREE LOCAL winners and lots of runners before a big crowd in lovely weather conditions combined to make Friday evening’s eight-race National Hunt card at Bettyville racecourse a most successful occasion. The Codd brothers, William and Jamie, bookended the meeting with a family double, and J.J. Slevin and Yvonne Latta also combined for a third local winner.
The aggregate take on the Tote was a massive €242,000 (eight races), more than double the €115,000 total for the same meeting last year (seven races), and two lucky punters won the Jackpot, taking home a cool €18,637 each.
Two Wexford horses fought out the finish of the opening Welcome to Wexford rated novice hurdle over three miles, with victory going to Tellthemnuttin (5/1), ridden by Dylan Robinson, trained and bred by Willie Codd at his Mayglass yard for the Heads or Harps syndicate.
When the question was popped in the home straight, the six years old mare found plenty to win by nearly four lengths. This was her fourth win and she seems to like her local track, this being her third win from three starts there, having scored last October 31 and July 16.
Trainer Codd was away at the Aintree Grand National meeting but the winning jockey said he thought Tellthemnuttin ‘is after improving again from last year; she is a stronger mare now and she just loves racing’. So, there may be more to come from this one.
Second here was the wellbacked favourite, Boru Boy (5/2), ridden by J.J. Slevin (Caim), for Pat Doyle, the well-known motor dealer from Courtown, and trained by Ger Murphy, Ballygarrett.
They were trying to follow up on a good win over a big field in Limerick in January, but fell just short this time, sticking on well to be well clear of the third, Noel Meade’s Rise of An Empire. Pat Doyle is very personally involved with the horse and does a lot of the riding out.
J.J. Slevin got quick compensation as he was back in the winners’ enclosure, completing a Wexford and a mares’ double in the third race, the €16,000 Oulart Handicap Hurdle, aboard Little Mitch (8/1) to give trainer Yvonne Latta from Ballycarney her first win of the season by three lengths.
A former bumper winner at Wexford in June, 2015, the horse had been off the track for more than ten months, so this was quite a training performance. Mrs. Latta gave full credit afterwards to her son, Andrew, who does most of the work with the horse. She said of Little Mitch: ‘she might be little… but she has a big, big heart’.
Second was Admiral Brian for Eamonn O’Connell from Tipperary, and Mikey Fogarty (Cleariestown) was third on Seskinane for Brian McMahon from Limerick.
We had to wait until the concluding Irish Stallion Farms EBF mares’ bumper for the third Wexford connected winner, with Jamie Codd collecting on Minutestomidnight for Cork trainer, Jonathan Sweeney.
Considering that Codd had come back from Aintree to take this mount and then returned to Liverpool for the Grand National the next day, she was sent off at a generous 8/1 and romped home by twelve lengths. Noel Meade’s Half the Odds (6/1) was second. Patrick Mullins, Jamie’s keen rival for the amateur riders’ championship, was well back in fourth on his father’s Blixt, the 6/4 favourite.
In other races, jockey Barry John Foley from Cork scored his first Irish track double and also doubled his tally for the season. He won the Springtime in Wexford maiden hurdle for trainer Roger Joseph McGrath from Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, on board Miss Eyecatcher (3/1f).
Foley’s second winner came in Division 1 of the Slaney Estuary handicap hurdle on Balinaboola (11/1), trained by Garrett James Power at Windgap, Co. Kilkenny, the horse’s first win in 20 attempts. Division 2 was won by All In The Head (14/1), ridden by Roger Loughran for Tom Foley from Bagenalstown, Carlow. John A. Berry’s Righty Rue (25/1) was third.
The Vinegar Hill Beginners’ Chase went to Water Sprite (5/2f), ridden by Denis O’Regan for the all-powerful Gordon Elliott, and in the second chase, the long trip from Shannon, Co. Clare, paid off for trainer Michael McDonagh as he snagged his fifth win of the season with Spancil Hill (10/1), ridden by David Splaine.
It was a good night’s entertainment and patrons will be hoping for more of the same at Bettyville for the Saturday afternoon meeting on May 6.