Inside Track: Connolly lands the odds – Gaels get a good run

There was a huge difference in the odds on Catherine Connolly becoming President and Dundalk Gaels winning the Louth senior championship. A whopping 116 points, in fact.

I was in the bookies on Friday morning last, making my usual donation when the odds on the presidential election came across.

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Connolly was 16/1 on, which, to those not familiar with betting, means, you lay out, say, 16 euro in the hope of winning just one euro.

Had you struck that bet, you’d have collected – as we all know by now, the candidate from the same county as the man she’ll succeed, Galway, won in a hack canter.

Heather Humphreys couldn’t emulate another former Monaghan TD, Erskine Childers, in her bid for the Áras. But she tried hard against the odds, a bit like Gaels.

There’s no need for me to declare an interest – anyone who stands around me at a match knows that I like to let out a bellow or two during a game, urging on the blue-and-whites. And I have something to say at times, representing the Ramparts club at County Board meetings.

I had a good feeling for the championship. We went through the intermediate league unbeaten, and I thought the draw for the league section of the senior championship gave us a fighting chance of making the knock-out stage.

I said this to a few colleagues, and then decided to put my money where my thoughts were.

“Outsider of the field,” said the bookie, ”a 100/1”. Undaunted, I laid out a few quid, taking an each-way bet. The return would be a fat four figures if we went the whole way, with a still quite sizeable return if we made the final.

We would have fluctuated in the market, our odds contracting after we beat St Fechin’s in a replay to reach the semi-finals.

Náomh Mairtín were warm favourites to beat us in the last four; anyone who backed the Monasterboice lads would have been counting their money long before the Darver match came to a close.

In touching distance coming to half-time, we conceded a free, and this being a night when he did nothing wrong, Sam Mulroy was always likely to claim the two points available to him.

Still, it’s been a good season, winning the league to have an entry in next year’s Cardinal O’Donnell Cup, and retaining our place in the senior championship.

As for my docket – there’s just about enough room left for it alongside the others of its kind on the wall in one of my rooms. Not the smartest of wallpaper, but just maybe the dearest.

Since the above was written, there’s been a change of luck. Independent Expert, in which I have the smallest of interests, came home in front in the first of Dundalk’s races last Friday night.

Not one to make a fortune on – she went off an even-money favourite – but still good to make a winning strike.

The big race on the card was won by the English raider, Spartan Arrow. Trained by Archie Watson, the 4-year-old had a jockey who gives meaning to the saying, ‘Good goods come in small parcels’.

Hollie Doyle is, what we say, a slip of a girl, but can she keep a horse balanced and yield nothing in a tight finish?

She had the best of Irish jockeys around her in the final furlong, but stayed ahead of them in the drive for the line. It was my second winner of the night.