Colin Keane and Billy Lee resume their titanic battle for the jockeys’ championship at the Curragh on Wednesday.
Locked together on 88 winners apiece, each has half a dozen rides in the final fixture of the season at HQ.
After a sustained struggle, every success is now vital with just half a dozen meetings left culminating in Sunday week’s finale at Naas.
However, perhaps the most vital result for Lee could be the outcome of his appeal against a six-day suspension that currently rules him out of the final two fixtures of the season.
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No date has yet been set for the appeal to be heard.
“The appeal was lodged late yesterday afternoon. Both parties are working towards a date. We need to convene a committee and we need to liaise with Mr Lee’s solicitor,” an Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board spokesman said on Tuesday.
Were the appeal to be delayed until after Sunday week it would suit Lee and tee up a potentially epic conclusion to the 2022 flat season on turf, although most appeals are heard before sanction dates begin.
Keane is attempting to retain the title and secure a fourth championship in all after a season highlighted by Westover’s success in June’s Irish Derby at the Curragh.
It is already a best-ever campaign for Lee, whose previous best tally of 57 was set in 2019. He has also enjoyed Group One success on Pearls Galore in the Matron Stakes and La Petite Coco in the Pretty Polly.
Lee teams up with Willie McCreery’s Cnodian in a sprint handicap just a few days after the horse finished runner-up at the course behind Sounds Of Spring.
Cnodian’s stable companion Downforce was fourth in that race and as a confirmed mudlark should relish the ultra-testing ground conditions. Keane is on board Fastar in this contest.
The reigning champion will hope for another favour from King Arthur’s Sword who won for him at Leopardstown on Saturday.
He carries a 7lb penalty for that half-length defeat of Fanore which came on a soft surface.
It’s likely to be even more testing at the Curragh and that could suit the consistent Derry Lad, who can hardly have it soft enough.
Dylan Browne McMonagle enjoyed a career peak at the Curragh last month with a breakthrough Group One victory on Al Riffa in the National Stakes.
The champion apprentice needs two more winners to reach half a century for the campaign and could secure them on Wednesday.
Secret Secret landed a gamble on his last start and while having to shoulder a hefty penalty in a 14-furlong handicap could hardly have won any easier at the trip in Navan.
Browne McMonagle is also on board the consistent Born Invincible in a seven-furlong handicap. A winner at the trip in Cork last month, the mare subsequently ran twice at six furlongs but is back to seven now and likely to relish the ground conditions.
In other regulatory news, jockey Philip Byrnes has lodged an appeal against a 10-day ‘non-trier’ ban picked up at Sligo last Friday.
Byrnes, son of trainer Charles Byrnes, received the penalty for his ride on the Noel Kelly-trained I Am Spider Man after failing “to be seen to be the subject of a genuine attempt to achieve from his mount, timely, real and substantial efforts to achieve a best possible placing” in a handicap hurdle.
The horse was suspended from racing for 42 days and the Sligo stewards referred the betting pattern on I Am Spiderman to a senior racing official for further investigation.
