Bread and Butter win for best buds
Anderson
Photos: Leigh
THERE was Wicklow success at Tipperary racecourse last week when Bread and Butter, owned by Dunlavin’s Kevin Sinnott and Crookstown’s Richie Whelan, was the winner of the @MansionBet Beaten By A Head Handicap Hurdle under C.P. McNamara.
Trained by Meath’s Gavin Cromwell, Bread and Butter is the only horse owned by the pair at the moment but Kevin had been involved in a syndicate with several friends who had all attended St Kevin’s CC in Dunlavin together with two previous horses but with no success following.
Sinnott, a former St. Nicholas footballer at underage level, said that it was ‘happy days’ when Bread and Butter secured their first win.
‘It’s the only one we own at the moment. We had two horses previously with Gavin but we didn’t get much luck with them. There was a crowd of us from Dunlavin on the last two, but the boys are out of the syndicate now, it’s myself and Richie now. It’s happy days to get the first one. We were second down in Gowran in March, so this is the first win last Wednesday. Happy days,’ he added.
Neither Richie nor Kevin could attend the meeting due to work commitments but both kept abreast of the developments thanks to social media.
‘Richie is working down in Kerry and I’m in Dublin so we couldn’t get down to it but we were watching it on the phones and we got a good auld laugh out of it.
‘We just got into having the horse for the bit of craic as a group of lads. We’d all be interested in the horses but we mainly got into it for the bit of craic and the few days out, and if you get a winner it’s a bonus.
‘There was six or seven of us who all went to St. Kevin’s in on the first two but Richie is from Crookstown himself, but he’d like to be called a Dunlavin man as well. He would have played a bit of hurling with St Laurences but he’s in retirement at the moment,’ said Kevin.
There’s more racing for Bread and Butter in the foreseeable future after he gave the two friends their first win. There’s even whispers of a trip to Listowel, where Richie works, in September.
‘He’ll run again in two weeks’ time. We were up in the yard there on Saturday. We’ll try get another win or two out of him. He’ll run in Roscommon in two weeks,’ said Kevin, before adding that it’s only thanks to the persistence and wisdom of the trainer that Bread and Butter even raced in Tipperary.
‘We were going to take a break over the summer, we thought he might need the heavy ground. We were going to put him out to grass but Cromwell went against it and said to leave him in there for the summer, let him run away. Only we listened to him he wouldn’t have got the win the other day,’ he said.
We wanted to know more about Kevin’s GAA exploits. He was quick to talk down his achievements.
‘I played a bit of football with Nicks underage. We were no superstars. I was on the Minor team who won two Minors (title) there. The lads (Dunlavin) went back up there last year (Senior), so hopefully they’ll give Senior a good rattle for the next few years,’ said the electrical foreman.