Inside Track: Lots of racing for the grown-ups and fun for the children
Inside Track with Joe Carroll
What’s been topsy-turvy renewal of the Bar 1 Betting Sprint Cup reaches its climax on next Saturday night at Dundalk Stadium.
Carrying a first prize of €20,000, the competition, one of the racing game’s Classics, is the feature of the second part of the venue’s day-long programme.
Horse racing takes place in the afternoon, and while that will interest most grown-ups, children won’t be short of fun activities to occupy them.
There’s face-painting, a Kidz playbus, pony rides and much more, including Tommy Trickster the Magician, who might just be called upon by some of the punters, hoping he can come up with a winner or two.
The opening round session of the Sprint Cup promised much. Times were good, 21 seconds being broken on three occasions. To those not familiar with greyhound racing, that’s fast running.
However, in subsequent rounds injuries and absentees took their toll, with many fancied runners falling by the wayside.
Still, the six to contest the final are there on merit. One of them, Barefoot On Fire, the oldest in the field, runs for Co Meath trainer, Martin Lanney, whose record in the competition – which was first run in 2004 and has been sponsored by the Dundalk-headquartered Bar 1 Racing for for the past 23 years – stands up to the closest scrutiny.
Lanney has provided more finalists than any other trainer, and stood on the prdium in 2007 following the win of Johnny Gatillo.
He went close to a repeat in 2017 when his charge, Forest Natalee, was beaten on the line by Heisman, running for the Jones kennel in Carrickmacross. Natalee went on to win the Irish Oaks shortly afterwards.
Barefoot On Fire will be among the outsiders in the betting, which is likely to be headed by Montana Secret, fastest of the semi-final winners. The Cork-based runner has a good draw in 2, and if successful will give trainer John A Linehan a second win in the competition.
Montana is taken to win, with Rallying Billy the danger. If there’s to be a surprise, Tiermana Dream could be the one to provide it.