THE NEW National Hunt season has started in an "as you were" vein. Charlie Swan and Aidan O'Brien numerically dominated the 1996-97 season which ended on Saturday and they continued on their winning ways with Colm's Rock at Tralee yesterday. And Swan, in particular, looks set to emphasise that dominance with a possible four-timer at Tralee this afternoon.
The champion jockey is at the peak of his career and finished the old season on 126 winners, a whopping 70 clear of nearest rival Conor O'Dwyer. Eighty-five of those were supplied by O'Brien who finished the year himself with a remarkable 135 winners and almost £800,000 in Irish prize money.
It's an unprecedented level of dominance by a combination and in the short term at least there is no hint of a let up.
They team up for Barhale Boy in the opening maiden and this Wexford bumper winner last October should show the benefit of his only subsequent run at Killarney last month.
O'Brien and Swan can also land the Grace Memorial Handicap Hurdle with Glorious Gale, an easy seven-length victor over Crucial Move and Stillbyherself at Clonmel last time.
It's significant that Swan has chosen to ride Runabout in the Ring Of Kerry Handicap Hurdle and on this fast ground, the champion can also fancy his chances on Mouse Morris's Cristy's Picnic in the handicap chase.
Meanwhile, at Gowran Park on Saturday, Jim Bolger's Nordic Project, despite rising by seven pounds in the handicap following recent wins at Cork and The Curragh, annihilated his four rivals under Kevin Manning in the featured Ormonde handicap.
Mick Kinane, who partners the warm favourite Entrepreneur for next Saturday's Vodafone Derby at Epsom, was seen to good effect on the Tom Taaffe trained, Dromineer in the McEnery Cup handicap, when the pair just shaded top weight Power Play and John Murtagh after a titanic battle from the furlong pole.
