Galway syndicate eye £1m bonus
Date Published: {J}
A LOCAL racing syndicate could be in line for a €1 million bonus after their horse Go Native – a rank outsider – defied the odds in causing a major shock in the WBX.COM Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle over the weekend.
The Noel Meade trained six-year-old gelding, Go Native, owned by the Docado Syndicate which includes well-known businesspeople Eamon Doyle and Kitty Carr who own Park House Hotel in the city, was sent to post at odds of 25/1 and stormed home ahead of 2007 Champion Hurdle winner Sublimity (20/1), Solwhit (15/8) and odds-on favourite Binocular which finished a disappointing fifth.
And it will be double celebrations this week for Kitty and Eamon, who this Saturday, December 5, will also be toasting the 34th anniversary of when they took over Park House, formerly Eyre House, on Forster Street. The two-mile Grade One race is the first leg of the WBX Hurdling Triple Crown.
Go Native will run again in the second leg in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton on St Stephen’s Day and the third leg, the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in March – if he wins those two races and captures the ‘triple crown’, the owners are in line for a whopping €1 million bonus. The suspended Paul Carberry is Go Native’s regular jockey, but Davy Condon proved more than an able deputy on Saturday.
Previous winners of the Newcastle race include Harchibald, also trained by Meade, and Punjabi, the current champion hurdler.Eamon, his partner Kitty and her niece Annemarie Dowd purchased the horse about three years ago from one of their regular customers, Martin Cullinane of Athenry, and since then Go Native has won seven races and finished second on three occasions.
His last big win was the Supreme Novices Hurdle at the Cheltenham festival in March of this year.
“He’s doing okay, he’s paying his way anyway,” laughs Kitty, who travelled to Newcastle for the race on Saturday. “We all went over on Saturday; we couldn’t let him go on his own, sure he’s like a child at this stage. He was a total outsider – it’s too good to be true,” says Kitty, who is planning trips to Kempton and Cheltenham for the second and third legs of the Triple Crown.
The WBX Hurdling Triple Crown has only ever been achieved once, by Kribensis, which won the three races in the same season in 1989/90 when ridden by Richard Dunwoody.Meanwhile, John Earls from Killimordaly saw his colours carried to success at Thurles last Thursday when the Gordon Elliott trained Chicago Grey came out on top in an exciting finish from Smoking Aces to the Clonoulty Hurdle.