World Record For Doonbeg

Former O’Brien Award winner Doonbeg has helped himself not just to a track and national record on his latest outing at Amman Valley Racetrack in Wales last Monday

– but he’s also managed to break the World Record for a mile time on a less-than-half-mile track.

Doonbeg scorched the Amman Valley oval (which measures just 835yds or approximately 0.475 miles!) in a blistering 1:53.7 in the latest heat of the Crock of Gold series and in the process cemented his place in the ‘Crock’ final at Tir Prince Raceway (also Wales) on Monday, September 6 for his Irish connections, Porterstown Stables of County Kildare.

Doonbeg’s time shaved a full four and a half seconds off the previous track record which was set last year by another former Canadian campaigner, Panlubber, who also happened to be the first horse home after the Jonathan Dunne-driven Doonbeg on this occasion. Panlubber was in rein to another Irishman, Robert Cleary.

Trot Insider caught up with Geoffrey Dunne of Porterstown Stables the morning after his stablestar’s stunning win, where it was business as usual back at the haulage firm Mr Dunne runs in County Kildare.

“We came home on the ferry through the night and I was back to work this morning, Jonathan trained some of the other horses when he got home ahead of the racing this weekend and I’m back in the day job, that’s how it goes,” said Dunne. “We’re absolutely over the moon with Doonbeg, needless to say. He’s just been getting better and better the past few weeks since Musselburgh (where he won a high-class FFA and also broker the track record) and we’re just hoping for a bit of luck in the Crock final.”

The son of Camluck-St Mattricks Way will head back over to Wales next week for the Tregaron Trotting Festival – a meet which gained notoriety last year when none other than Roger Huston was flown in to call the races – where he will compete in the ‘Electric Mile’ FFA on grass – a surface Doonbeg has shown a real liking for since he swapped the Maple Leaf for the shamrock in early 2009, breaking three track records on turf courses alone.

“Before the Crock of Gold, we have Tregaron so we just have our fingers crossed that he gets through that, gets some luck in the draw and is in tip-top shape on September 6 in Tir Prince,” Dunne continued. “It was pretty emotional on Monday night, we knew he’d a great chance to win but to see him opening up and opening up and then to see the time at t he end, we were just blown away to be fair.”

Of the eight horses likely to line up next Monday week for the most eagerly-anticipated Crock of Gold final since the race’s inception, the four highest-rated fancies will make their way from the ‘green’ side of the Irish Sea. Doonbeg arguably leads the charge, with little to choose between the West Cork and Dublin-owned Earned Income (db,h,2000 Dream Away-Kleen Aquisition) who just happens to be the defending Crock champ, the Welsh-owned and Irish-trained Crown Manhattan (brn,h,2003 Northern Luck-Wild Proposition) and the Derry raider – and track record holder at Tir Prince – Forafewdollarsmore, a five-year-old son of The Panderosa out of the Artsplace mare, Oh My Dear.

(Trot Insider exclusive by Eric Haughan)