There was a lot going on over the weekend

The sports staples provided lots to keep us occupied over the weekend. Gaelic, soccer and horse racing had fixtures at local, national and international levels. They brought a mixture of results, most good and some not-so-good.

The local GAA season is reaching a climax, championship matches in all grades coming on thick and fast. All grades are being covered from underage to senior, and it’s not all about boys and THE menfolk. Ladies are having their say, and at Ardee on Sunday, the game had its biggest day of the season.

DUNDALK DEBUTANTES MAKE THEIR MARK

The world’s greatest race of horses the Flat season was decided in Paris at the same time as St Patrick’s and St Kevin’s met in the senior ladies' final, and this, in the light of what we’re talking about, appropriately enough went to a ‘lady’.

The Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe is worth over €2 million in prize money, but winning it carries prestige that couldn’t be valued. The English-trained Bluestocking came home in front, to give Galway-born jockey, Rossa Ryan, the biggest triumph in his fledgling career.

It was at Dundalk where Ryan rode his first winner, six years ago. Not many could have known that on that Friday night, as the fresh-faced youngster made his way into the victory enclosure, that they were seeing a rider who would so early in his career score such a prestigious win, and almost certainly one day be champion jockey.

The prize money, €5,478, for the first race at Dundalk’s meeting last Friday night wouldn’t cover a racegoer’s exes for a weekend in Paris for the Arc meeting; but don’t think for one minute Knockbridge’s David Hoey and the others involved with the winner, Hero Of The Hour, didn’t derive as much satisfaction from their win as the owners of Bluestocking.

A well-backed 11/4 favourite, Hero Of The Hour, carrying red-and-white colours, which could be a nod to Hoey’s club team, St Bride’s – or maybe it’s Louth’s – won easily. The probability is the Meath-trained bay gelding will continue to be campaigned over the Dowdallshill circuit this winter.

Dundalk is also where local jockey, Shane Gray, kicked off his career. Now stationed in the north of England, the young man had his biggest win at Ascot on Saturday, steering Volterra home in a £92,000 major handicap. TV commentators were loud in their praise of the way Gray rode the heavily-supported to a very easy win.

ST PATRICK’S ON THE DOUBLE

St Patrick’s six-point win over St Kevin’s gave them the ladies’ title for the second successive year. It maintains the fine run the team has been on in recent times, with the intermediate championship in the bag from a few years ago.

This completed a good weekend for the Lordship-based Pat’s. On Saturday, their boys' minor team cause a major upset by beating St Mary’s in the minor championship semi-final. There were high hopes in Ardee that the under-17s could make it three in a row, having won the title last year and the year before that.

But while the champions gave it everything, it was a well-schooled Pat’s team that prevailed by two points in a game of outstanding quality. And now, who else should they take on in the final only neighbours, Cooley Kickhams, who had a very easy win in their semi-final? Like the senior final, this is a game with huge prospects.

DRAW DOES NOTHING TO EASE DUNDALK’S WORRIES

Reasonable as the result was, Dundalk’s Premier Division draw with Galway on Friday night has done nothing to ease fears for the club’s future. It will take a miracle of biblical proportions for the team to avoid ending up in the bottom spot, which, of course, brings with it automatic relegation.

But the prospect of playing in a lower division than the one the club dominated for so long in the last decade, winning title after title, pales in significance when compared with the precarious situation the club finds itself in. Supporters are anxiously waiting on news from ongoing negotiations.