RACING:Navan's authorities are confident of staging their Cheltenham trials card on Tuesday, 48 hours later than scheduled. The meeting set for tomorrow was called off yesterday morning due to water-logging.
“Like the rest of the country we’ve been saturated here. We’ve had 52mms of rain since declaration time on Tuesday and although we got only 2-3mms on Thursday night and into this morning, it pushed us over the edge,” Navan’s manager Darren Lawlor said yesterday. “Even though the track drains exceptionally well, even that little bit extra, which we’d been told we wouldn’t get, had nowhere to go.
“So with that, and the forecast of more rain on Saturday, it more or less made our minds up. We’re supposed to get dry days on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and if that’s the case, then I would be very confident,” he added.
Anastasia O’Brien, the 16-year-old daughter of Annemarie and Ballydoyle trainer Aidan, a fifth year student in secondary school, rode her first winner when the family’s Fairylike (10/1) took the Irish Stablestaff Association Awards 23rd February Apprentice Handicap at Dundalk last night.
Russell is up for the challenge
Just three days before the start of the Cheltenham festival, champion jockey Davy Russell will tackle a unique challenge at Gowran Park races.
Russell plans to race Paralympian Mark Rohan in a head-to-head challenge in aid of the mental health charity turn2me.org.
Russell will be on horseback while Rohan will be on his hand-bike. The divisions of today's Man V Beast Handicap Hurdle at Gowran have been named to promote the upcoming event on March 9th.
