RACING is often described as a great triviality but if ever it appeared tragically futile it was yesterday after Dorans Pride won the Power Gold Cup at a sombre and downcast Fairyhouse.
Dorans Pride may have won but the unashamed tears that choked his connections into silence concentrated all thoughts to the Mater hospital room where the horse's usual rider, Shane Broderick, lies with his career hanging by a thread too thin for even the hardest heart's comfort.
Jump racing may have more than its share of hard, often sardonic professionals with their feet firmly planted in reality but public facades lay stripped as Dorans Pride returned to a sympathetic winners enclosure.
Michael Hourigan, who has moulded Broderick's career since the jockey joined him four years ago, understandably shied away from well-meaning but prying questions and a tearful owner Tom Doran contended himself by saying: "This one was for Shane. I considered not running the horse but Shane would have wanted him to run."
Richard Dunwoody stood in for Broderick and after what was a relatively routine five-length defeat of Jeffell, the former champion jockey said: "Shane's accident puts everything in perspective. Shane is a popular member of the jockeys room, a smashing lad, and I just hope he'll be back."
Dorans Pride performed his part admirably yesterday, matching strides with Jeffell until the turn-in before accelerating clear to wind up his novice season in good style and boost the Cheltenham Gold Cup form.
It was the only Cheltenham form yesterday that did get a boost as the Champion Hurdle second, Theatreworld, finished a well-beaten fifth in the Bisquit Cognac Handicap Hurdle behind the heavily backed favourite Khayrawani.
Theatreworld sweated up before the race, drifted ominously in the market and was being niggled by Charlie Swan fully six furlongs out. To his credit he stayed on well enough but by then Khayrawani had got the better of Kadastroff and Conor O'Dwyer pushed him out to beat Palette by a length.
"He had been all geared up for Cheltenham but pulled a muscle and it was probably just as well as I thought he had a pound or two too much in the Cheltenham handicaps. We thought of going to Aintree with him but when the topweight stayed in we changed our minds," said Khayrawani's trainer Christy Roche.
Aidan O'Brien was inclined to attribute Theatreworld's defeat to post-Cheltenham blues and Noel Meade felt the same after Hill Society, fifth in the Champion Hurdle, could manage only second at 2 to 5 to Dromineer in the RFL Steel Hurdle.
Dromineer provided Paul Hourigan (16) with his second winner over jumps and the young jockey was coolness itself as he pounced at the last flight to put four and a half lengths between himself and Hill Society.
Tom Taaffe was training his 114th winner and said: "I'm not superstitious but thank God I'm off 13. We were thinking of Cheltenham for this horse but he ran so badly at Punchestown, we put him away for this. I didn't think we'd beat Hill Society but if you're not in, you can't win!"
Meade had better luck in the opening maiden hurdle when Atha Beithe ran out a three-length winner from Spleodrach and gave his 17-year-old rider Barry Geraghty his ninth winner since January.
"That's a nice change of luck after yesterday," Meade understandably said considering two of his Irish Grand National runners, Coq Hardi Affair and The Latvian Lark, were put down with shoulder injuries.
The Oozler was a popular winner of the £50,000 Goffs Land Rover Bumper for the Birdie Racing Club. Appropriately, the winner was led back by Ryder Cup golfer and syndicate member Philip Walton and it was an immediate return for the club who bought The Oozler only six weeks ago.
"It's good for the club and this could be a helluva horse," said Mouse Morris who trains three other horses for the owners. Tony Martin had to use his considerable skill to keep The Oozler from leaning in on the second horse, Native Estates, but it was that one's rider, Greg Harford, who attracted the attention of the stewards. They slapped a three-day ban on Harford for using his whip with excessive frequency on Native Estates.
The other bumper on the card, the Powers Gold Label Final, fell to the David Kiely-trained Solvang who landed a tidy gamble. A winner of a point-to-point at Lingston in Co Wexford, Solvang comes from the family of Deep Bramble and Seven Towers.
