GALWAY FESTIVAL DAY THREE:TONY McCOY travelled to Ballybrit yesterday believing he would be riding Dancing Tornado in the Tote Galway Plate but a late switch to JP McManus's other runner, Finger Onthe Pulse, resulted in the champion jockey's first ever victory in the famous steeplechase.
Don’t Push It’s Aintree Grand National win will always be the most significant breakthrough success of a momentous 2010 for McCoy, but there was a similarly fateful feel to yesterday’s triumph.
Dancing Tornado was cast in his box the night before and his trainer, Michael Hourigan, described his phone call to McManus’s racing manager Frank Berry yesterday morning as “the worst call of my life”. The resultant reshuffle saw McCoy replace Mark Walsh on Finger Onthe Pulse, a 2007 Cheltenham Festival winner, whose underwhelming recent efforts had been consistent of the general form shown by the rest of Tom Taaffe’s stable. However, McCoy’s presence seemed to galvanise the 22 to 1 shot who was always prominent and fought back with a vengeance on the long climb to the line after being briefly headed by Themoonandsixpence.
The 3 to 1 favourite, Majestic Concorde, was back in third with topweight The Fonze fourth and the coolest individual on the premises appeared to be the man who had flown to Galway after riding in the 8.55 at Worcester the previous evening.
“He nearly gets three miles so I knew he’d stay and he was enjoying himself in front so I let him go on. His form wasn’t inspiring but he was actually running an okay race at Punchestown when I fell off him,” McCoy said.
That blip contributed to form-figures before the Plate of “F-F-U” and led Taaffe to quip: “All we needed was another bad one for UFO!” The victory represented a welcome change of luck for the Gold Cup-winning trainer and appropriately, given the winner’s name, it also caught the pulse of the current economic reality.
Finger Onthe Pulse won the Jewson three years ago in the colours of Conor Clarkson, a Dublin businessman whose fortunes have faded on the back of the economic crash and Taaffe was grateful to McManus yesterday for stepping in to buy the horse.
“He was big enough and brave enough to buy him. It has been a tough time,” he said. “You hate to say it’s a terrible time when a lot of people are worse, but our horses have been struggling for form and thankfully the owners have been patient while we’ve tried to find out why.”
Themoonandsixpence ran a remarkable race for a horse having just his third start over fences. However, there was a less happy outcome for the Colm Murphy-trained Don’t Be Bitin who broke his shoulder in a fall at the fourth fence and had to be put down.
Dermot Weld was out of luck with Majestic Concorde but brought his tally for the week to nine, just one short of his best ever festival tally, with a treble yesterday. Endless Intrigue comfortably won the amateur maiden under Robbie McNamara and Rock Critic made his first start of the season a sauntering eight-length victory in the mile handicap under Pat Smullen. The latter was also on board Unaccompanied in the mile maiden where they were too good for Barrow Island.
“Our strength does tend to weaken later in the week. But we’ll keep going as best we can!” Weld said.
There was a controversial finish to the three-mile handicap hurdle when the Paul Carberry ridden Hoopy was allowed keep the race despite hampering King Of Redfield in the final stages.
The runner-up’s trainer “Shark” Hanlon said he would appeal the decision, pointing to the narrow margin and that Carberry didn’t switch his whip in the closing stages.
THE FIGURES:AFTER Tuesday's attendance fillip, the Galway figures took a slight dip yesterday with the Plate crowd down 306 from last year's total to 20,446.
Tote turnover was also down slightly from just over €1 million in 2009 to €970,472 yesterday.
Bookmaker turnover reached €2,484,547, which represented a drop of €68,533 (or nearly three per cent) from last year, while €427,059 was bet on the Tote-sponsored Plate.
