Killarney

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by Eamonn Fitzgerald



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Cheltenham will hold centre stage next week. Even people who say they have no interest in sport are enthused by the Aintree Grand National and the Gold Cup at Cheltenham.



Celebrating St Patrick’s day, our national feast day, is special worldwide for parades such as the big one in Dublin and the marvellous effort here locally in Killarney, with a parade the centrepiece of a wonderful programme of events.



The Gold Cup evokes so many memories of Irish spirits raised as Florida Pearl, Forget Me Not, Beef or Salmon and so many more lifted the treasure of National Hunt racing, An Corn Óir.



Look no further than 2002, 2003 and 2004 and Killarney’s outstanding jockey Jim Culloty charging up that Cheltenham hill to victory. Those were famous years for the local followers of the equine stakes. Three years in a row by the outstanding Lewis Road jockey. Best Mate won his third Gold Cup in 2004, becoming the first horse since Arkle 40 years earlier to seal the treble.



Trained by Henrietta Knight and ridden by Culloty, the horse ran in the claret and blue colours of Aston Villa. No doubt Jim’s mother Maureen will be following all the action at Cheltenham from her home in Killarney.



I suppose it was a longshot for Jack Kennedy to be fit to ride in this year’s big race. The Dingle jockey has not fully recovered from a broken leg sustained early last January. Disappointment for the 23-year-old Dingle man, so it looks like 43-year-old Davy Russell will take his place.



GREATEST



Move just a few miles down the road on our bothairín na smaoite from Moss Keane’s Currow to Castleisland and, more specifically, the Latin Quarter of same for memories of one of the greatest sports writers of all to come rolling back to us.



Con Houlihan was different and what’s more he made a difference in sports journalism. Not for him the blow-by-blow account of who scored what and how many minutes were left in the contest. He saw the bigger picture. He ever went into a press box in his life, be it Croke Park, Fitzgerald Stadium, Cheltenham, Harold’s Cross, Lansdowne Road, Old Trafford, or wherever there was a sporting contest. He wanted to be among the plain people of Ireland, savouring how much sport meant to them.



Who can ever forget Con’s take on his annual trips to the Cotswold Hills to be among the plebs with the ham sandwiches wrapped in the racing pages of the newspapers &#8211; in stark contrast to the well-heeled ‘beef or salmon’ upper classes.



However, when Killarney’s own Jim Culloty coaxed Best Mate for more coming up that hill, the Irish roar and the mini-tricolours signalled supremacy for the small nation over the best from the British Empire. A win over the auld enemy is special in any sport. Big Con reported from Cheltenham as follows:



“When Arkle stormed up the hill to his first Gold Cup, few of his myriad admirers realised that nibs of snow had started to come with the wind; yesterday it was very cold in the Cotswolds but in retrospect most of those who were on Cheltenham’s racecourse will remember the time between about half past three and four o’clock as a fragment of Summer. Such was the enormous outburst of emotion that for a little while the thin wind seemed not to matter. And no doubt there are decent men and women who will dip into their imaginations at some distant date and say that they were there – and they will be right.”



Con died in 2012 and I had the privilege of a two-hour visit with him at St James’ Hospital, Dublin a very short time before he died.



What a wonderful report he would have had in 2022 when Rachael Blackmore became the first female jockey to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup in the 182-year history of the race. She also became the first woman to be leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival with six victories, including the Champion Hurdle on Honeysuckle, in 2021.



The following year she became the first female jockey to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup aboard A Plus Tard for Henry de Bromhead.



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Gold Cup evokes great memories for the people of Killarney

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