Fahys complete big greyhound double in Cork
Date Published: 19-Oct-2010
Stephen Glennon
Glenamaddy owner PJ Fahy, who won the Irish Greyhound Derby last month, has described Saturday night’s Irish Laurels victory at Curraheen Park as “the dessert after the main course”.
Once again, the father and son combination of owner PJ and trainer Conor were to the fore when Tyrur Enda stormed home in a time of 28.42 to win the Pat Hennerty Sales Irish Laurels accolade in Cork last weekend.
It’s just over a month since another of their charges, Tyrur McGuigan, won the Irish Derby and Tyrur Enda’s win at Curraheen Park just underlined the quality of competitor currently affiliated to the Fahy family’s kennels.
“It was fantastic to win it. Enda is a great dog; he was very unlucky to miss out in the quarter-final of the derby. He was in trap one and he missed the break and went four or five lengths down. He just doesn’t seem to like trap one,” remarks owner Fahy. “He was always the favourite to win this one, though. He was in great form going into it.”
He notes the biggest danger on Saturday night was Tubbertelly Dubh, which, as it transpired, was indeed a close second. Although Tyrur Enda made all the running, building up an early lead, his challenger had closed the gap by the third bend and was right back in the hunt coming into the final turn.
In the end, though, Enda drew on all his experience and held on to win by three-quarters of a length to take the first prize of €35,000 from Tubbertelly Dubh, with the American dog, Kiowa Myth finishing a further five lengths behind in third. “He has great early pace and once he went ahead going into the first bend, he was always going to win it,” says Fahy.
“To do the double, well, it’s the icing on the cake. It has been a very good year for us. We also went very close to winning the Champions Stakes – we were just beaten by a head – so it has been a hectic four months or so.
“We will just sit down now and take it easy for the next few months, although we hope to enter something in the St. Ledger in Limerick, while the Masters is on in Waterford in two weeks time and we hope to enter Big Mike in that. I think he will be well suited to it. However, we will be resting our other big dogs for the time being at least.”
No doubt, it has been a year to remember for the Fahy family, particularly for 22-year-old trainer Conor who was awarded his licence earlier this year.
“It has been unbelievable,” beams father PJ. “Since Conor got his trainer’s licence back in April, we had eight dogs in seven finals. We have won four finals, came second three times and also finished third once – we had two dogs in the Derby final, coming first and second.”