THE TWO mile champion chaser Big Zeb will appear at Leopardstown’s upcoming Christmas festival with the title of Ireland’s “Horse Of The Year” for 2010 already in his grasp.
Colm Murphy’s stable star beat off challenges from flat race luminaries such as the Irish Derby winner Cape Blanco and the Ascot Gold Cup hero Rite Of Passage to pick up the prestigious prize at yesterday’s Horse Racing Ireland presentation awards.
The prizes were handed out at Leopardstown racecourse and the Co Dublin track will be the stage for Big Zeb when he appears next in the Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet Chase during the Christmas festival.
“He is in very good form and Christmas here is what we’re aiming at,” Murphy said yesterday. “It was a great day when he won at Cheltenham and hopefully we can get him back there.”
Big Zeb beat his compatriot Forpadydeplasterer in last March’s Queen Mother Champion Chase which was the high point of Ireland’s seven-winner haul at the Cheltenham festival.
The star chaser picked up the top award yesterday where HRI’s chief executive Brian Kavanagh stressed the way the sport is presented in Ireland will be a priority for racing’s ruling body in 2011.
A HRI strategic group is currently attempting to pinpoint ways to improve attendances at Irish racecourses and to increase the sport’s profile generally.
“We are going to have to take a long hard luck at the way we present racing,” Kavanagh said. “If we don’t change then some racecourses may not survive.”
One area Kavanagh referenced was in relation to race times. However, he also stressed that in the current economic climate, maintaining attendance levels, as Irish racing has done this year, is a substantial achievement.
Kavanagh also said Irish racing faced a real financial challenge after HRI’s budget was cut by a further €1.6 million in last week’s Budget. It was the fourth funding cut for the semi-State organisation in the last three years.
“Our funding structure is not as good as other countries and yet the racing industry is much more important to Ireland,” he said. “France, for instance, will have a three per cent increase in prizemoney for 2011.”
Other award winners yesterday included champion trainer Willie Mullins, who picked the National Hunt award after another successful year highlighted by two winners at the Cheltenham festival, Quevega and Thousand Stars. He also equalled his 2009 tally of a dozen victories at the Punchestown festival.
Michael Halford picked up the flat award after securing the first Group One success of his career when training Casamento to win the Racing Post Trophy at Doncaster in October.
Casamento is now in training with Godolphin in Dubai but Halford said: “He went to Godolphin the evening he won the Racing Post. It was an honour to get two horses to train from Sheikh Mohammed and for one of them to win a Group One was fantastic.”
The first joint award winners in the eight-year history of the HRI awards was announced in the “Outstanding Achievement” category when Jessica Harrington and Katie Walsh shared the prize.
Walsh secured two winners at the Cheltenham festival while Harrington, better known as a jumps trainer, saddled a first Group One winner on the flat with Pathfork’s National Stakes success.
Point to Point racing’s most successful jockey Derek O’Connor secured the point-to-point award while Colm Murray was a hugely, popular winner of the “Contribution to the Industry Award”.
The HRI commendation praised the RTÉ presenter “for the wonderful service that he has provided to racing since 1990. His engaging and eloquent reports from racecourses and training yards all over Ireland have helped to bring racing to the attention of literally millions of people over the past two decades, illuminating our great sport in a constantly positive and entertaining manner.”
Murray was joined on stage by many of his RTÉ colleagues including fellow presenters Brian Dobson and Sharon Ní Bheoláin.
