Irish success Down Under

By Caitriona Fenton

From Adelaide to Bellewstown! Today sees the return of the victorious 2010 Irish National Hunt jockeys team that travelled to Australia to take part in the South Australian Jockey Club sponsored Jumps Challenge. The Irish team was made up of the Irish jockeys, Mark Walsh, Stephen Gray, Paul Townend and Davy Condon. The Australian team was captained by Tom Logan and included Arron Lynch, Gavin Bedggard and for the first time a female jockey, Emily Taylor.

This is the 24th year of the tour that sees Irish jockeys compete against Australians in a total of six races that culminated in the ‘Irish Day’ meeting at Morphetville, Adelaide. This year the four jockeys departed from Dublin on the 13th of August and they arrived in Adelaide on the 15th to begin the challenge.

The challenge kicked off on the 18th at Gawler, where although no Irish jockey won their races Paul Townend came in fourth with Stephen Gray coming in at 5th. The second day at Gawler saw the young Paul Townend pass the post in first place on the Eric Musgrave-trained Champion Chesnut to put the Irish jockeys in the lead. The second jump race of the day also went to the Irish. Kildare jockey Mark Walsh partnered Bell Ringer to win the Dunes Port Hughes hurdle while Davy Condon came in third place to round things up.

The final race day of the challenge was the ‘Irish Day’ at Morphetville. This is the second largest race meeting in the Southern Australian calendar and it attracts a large crowd every year to watch the rivalry between the Irish and Aussie jockeys. The day certainly lived up to its name as Stephen Gray, the young jockey from Dundalk came in true style to win the very close Aus $ 40,000 hurdle race aboard Destiny Calls. Third place in this race went to teammate Davy Condon on Champion Chesnut who as mentioned earlier gave his cousin Paul Townend the first win of the challenge.

The Steeplechase race saw Mark Walsh and Australian jockey Emily Taylor battle it out for the valuable race with the Australian coming in to beat the Irishman by 1 ¼ lengths. However this did not dampen the Irish spirits as the Irish won the overall challenge with70 ½ points to 58 ½.

The tour is a great chance for up and coming jockeys to gain valuable experience riding overseas as some only ride in Ireland and England. One teammate who is no stranger to Australia is Davy Condon who got the chance to ride in the 2003 Melbourne Cup aboard Holy Orders.

Some might not associate jump racing with Australia as much as in Ireland and Britain and might be surprised to know that the first jump race was held in Sydney in 1832. Some big races include the Grand Annual in May at Warrnambool and the Great Eastern Steeplechase on Easter Monday at Oakbank.

However jump racing in the country has had its share of controversy. In 1991 an inquiry into animal welfare in jump racing resulted in the phasing out of the sport on grounds of cruelty. The news came as a blow to those in the industry. Most recently jump racing was banned in the state of Victoria due to the number of deaths of horses and now South Australia – where the jockeys challenge was held, is the only state in the country that allows jump racing.

Hopefully jump racing will not die out completely in Australia and there will be many more jockey challenges to conquer for the Irish!

By Caitriona Fenton