LEOPARDSTOWN HOLIDAY FESTIVAL: BRIAN O'CONNORwas at Tom Taaffe's stables in Kildare yesterday as the trainer prepared for the Leopardstown festival
THERE’S NO getting away from it. Ads are playing, the lights have been switched on and Noddy Holder is screeching out that Godawful song – “It’s CHRRRIIISSSTMAS!” Well, not yet it isn’t, but Christmas was the theme as Horse Racing Ireland launched Leopardstown’s holiday festival at Tom Taaffe’s stables in Straffan, Co Kildare, yesterday.
Initially the weather looked like playing ball in providing a typical Irish Christmas vibe and peeing down on everyone from a great height. But miraculously, just as Taaffe pointed his string towards the gallops, it stopped.
“God is with us with the weather anyway,” announced the trainer as he led a damp and squelching media scrum up the incline of an all-weather gallop that quickly had the hack-pack spread out and off the bridle.
Half way to the top, there was a grateful veer to the left where a rugged-up racehorse and two ponies stared inquisitively at the wheezy new arrivals.
“That’s Kicking King who won the Gold Cup (2005) for us and is now retired,” Taaffe announced, pointing to the larger of the three animals. “With him are Arkle and Mill House. And there’s Nijinsky!” Straffan’s Nijinsky is a Rottweiller whose power is purely intimidatory. The ponies though are a different matter, carrying names that still resonate through racing history but with an extra frisson of nostalgia mixed in.
This current pocket-Arkle is a champion in the pony ring and is ridden by Taaffe’s seven-year-old son, Pat. Now, there’s a combination for any gymkhana announcer to get stuck into – Arkle and Pat Taaffe.
No matter how wet the morning, it can’t dampen the sense of racing history in this place. In the late 1950s, Mill House was brought by Pat Taaffe Snr the short journey to Rathcoole to be trained by his father. On the journey, the great chaser put his foot through the floor of the trailer and it dragged along the road. He almost had to be put down.
If he had been, jump racing’s greatest rivalry, the one with Arkle, who just happened to be ridden by the same Pat Taaffe, would never have happened. In this part of north Kildare, the game is in the marrow as well as the blood. “Our son Pat was born the same day as Kicking King won his first race at Leopardstown,” Taaffe remembers.
“Yes, he dropped me into hospital and then went racing,” his wife Elaine declares.
“I was back for the action!” he argues.
Not that this part of the world, or racing, is removed from reality. The building firm, Durkan Bros, sponsors of Leopardstown’s St Stephen’s Day card for years, have pulled out to be replaced by the semi-state body, Bord Na Mona. They will sponsor five races on the day including the Grade One novices chase.
Another sign of the times will be a reduced prizefund over the four days at Leopardstown but everything is relative and Taaffe, a committee member at the Co Dublin track, is targeting the Christmas festival, as well as other potential pickings over the holiday period, with typical focus.
“From the meetings three days before Christmas through to about January 6th there is such an array of races in Ireland that if you plot and plan properly you can end up getting a couple of simple prizes,” he said yesterday.
In 2006, Taaffe plotted a successful route for Cane Brake to land the lucrative Paddy Power Chase but the classy chaser could be taking a less onerous Christmas path this time towards his ultimate goal in April’s Aintree Grand National.
“He is 30lb better handicapped over hurdles than fences so we will run at Fairyhouse on December 5th and then see about Leopardstown.
“It looks like some good English horses are coming over for the Lexus Chase but if it isn’t ultra-competitive then we could take our chance.
“If it is, then there is a three-mile handicap hurdle for him,” Taaffe said.
Glenfinn Captain tried and failed to win last year’s Lexus but is on course to run in the two mile Grade One Dial-A-Bet Chase this time, via Cork’s Hilly Way Chase, while the Coral Cup hero Ninetieth Minute has the Grade Two Woodies Christmas Hurdle on his agenda.
“Ninetieth Minute will run this Sunday in the Hatton’s Grace and that will tell us a lot more about him. He has got to find 20-25lb to become a Grade One World Hurdle type horse.
If he can’t manage that then we’ll go the Grade Two route that Emotional Moment went on,” the trainer added. Other less high-profile names to watch out for over the holiday period could be Spruce Cottage – “he has the engine, we’ve just got to fine tune it! – and Interpleader who impressed on the gallops yesterday.
Impressing at the track though is the important part and it remains the case that there is no more desirable festival to win at in Ireland that Leopardstown’s Christmas bash.
And that’s not humbug.
Major winner as jockey and trainer
Name: Tom Taaffe
Stables: Portree, Straffan, Co Kildare.
Biggest win as jockey: 1987 Irish Grand National on Brittany Boy. Trainers Licence: 1994.
First Major Winner: 1998 Power Gold Cup with Delphi Lodge.
Biggest Win As Trainer: 2005 Cheltenham Gold Cup with Kicking King.
Other Cheltenham Festival Winners: 2008 Jewson Handicap Chase with Finger Onthe Pulse 2009 Coral Cup with Ninetieth Minute.
Other Major Wins: 2004 2005 King George VI Chase with Kicking King, 2006 Paddy Power Chase with Cane Brake.
