https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmXEAfa8-2A

Paul Kimmage has another meet-up with the Coolcullen maestro JB on todays sindo. Raymond Smith another great journalist of past times, any memories?. Didn't know that Cash Asmussen rode around the Phoenix Park. Was there a specialist jockey for the PP? as like today we have Ascot Frankie!. It was such a unique track. Maybe C Roche or Johnny Roe great champions or the runaway Buster Parnell!! Any thoughts lads/ they say there is a book in every one well i'm certain there's a few books in workrider.  Is 'alans' already in print?

Bunkered by Entanglement out of Golf Ball.
I think trained by Bertie Kerr

Bertie Kerr, an outstanding footballer with Bohemians in his youth, had an astonishing record as a bloodstock agent, his brother Kevin was a leading trainer, and his nephew Bert also trained successfully, but has been better known as an agent and managing director of family firm Kerr & Co, the first truly Irish bloodstock agency and still going 100 years later.

Bertie had many a good sprinter that ran in the Park...

Alans , never knew Bertie played for Bohs , as a Rovers fan he was gone down in my estimation...

Yes workrider, just to be clear (because it can get confusing with Bertie/Bert) this was the original Bertie, Bohs and Ireland, he played, I think, on the very first League of Ireland team, and was certainly a member of the first Ireland team who competed at the Paris Olympics in 1924. Younger brother Kevin, a Classic-winning trainer, also played for Bohs. A great Dublin sporting family.

Alans that Kerr family are dropping like bricks as far as I'm concerned ... .Rovers and Bohs tomorrow night in Dalymount..

Watched it film did a lot of overlapping which i think took away from it Frank, anyway a super horse..

Punchestown , I walked the track there today , looks brilliant all the fences took down and stacked away for next season...

Amazing , I must pop up and have a look myself soon..

Brilliant piece Observeriri ...Cloonlara and Ballad Rock another McGrath rocket , ah the memories...

Standing in the Tote Q for payout after the race and the anticipation of the Tote dividends, hand written with chalk on tiny chalkboards.....

punchestown, a few interesting names from those days! I guess Paul Jarman was one of the last Australians here during that period (Ron Quinton and Wayne Harris a good bit later obviously. Garnie Bougoure, Pat Glennon (subsequently the great Sea Bird's jockey), Bill Williamson and Des Lake I suppose the best of them. And of course MV brought Neville Sellwood over to ride Larkspur in the Derby, 1962. Tragically Sellwood was killed in a fall in France later that year. I remember John Corr well (English-born I think) from the time he rode for Stuart Murless in the 1970s, he won a National Stakes on Pampapaul. Rode for Seamus McGrath and/or Micko I think.

Just to clarify don't think Lake was the best of them, but that group of four were superior to others. My father and grandfather were great Garnie fans, and along with Lester and Scobie he was one of the first jockeys whose name I knew as a very small child.

very good Punchestown, when I was a very little person I used to wander around picking up discarded tote-tickets and checking the race and horse numbers for winners. I found a couple in my time. In pre-decimal days. if my memory is correct, yellow a half-crown (2s6d), green 5 shillings, pink 1 pound. After decimal they became 20p, 50p and £1, so the minimum bet was increased, 20p being the equivalent of 4 shillings. My first understanding of the concept of inflation!

Some nice footage of last couple of Heinz 57 races on you tube if anyone interested.

WR no relation to Don Magee

Have great memories of the Park in the early/ mid sixties .  I was working/living in Dublin, and seldom missed a Park meeting .  Not the best track in the country horse wise , but made up for that in atmosphere . Garda band there often , added a lot to the atmosphere .

My wife ( girl friend then) used to travel down to any Saturday meeting then with the late Sean Graham ( who was not allowed a licence in the south and had to bet under the name of a southern bookie friend  , Peter Fitzimmons) .

Great to recall all the great horses and Jockeys who graced the Park . An uncle of mine knew Bertie Kerr well , and that yielded an occasional well priced winner . George McGrath rode most of those Kerr winners as I recall .

The non Irish jockeys were often in the limelight , some for good reasons , and a few did not distinguish themselves for whatever reason .

Garnie Bougoure , Ron Hutchinson , Bill Williamson , the inevitable brilliant Lester , were better than most of the Irish jockeys at that stage , but Johnnie Roe and Liam Ward upped the game for the locals , George McGrath also pulling his weight . All change these days , overall we have the best in the world combining flat and NH.

Losing the Park and Baldoyle left a big hole in the Metropolitan racing scene , although Leopardstown is among the best tracks in the world and a joy to visit .

The then bookies contributed a lot to racing back then , lots of characters about .  Cannot say the same for current crop who seem to spend most of their time consulting computer screens .

Never understood why the Park was allowed to wither and die , it was a national institution, and maybe should have had a preservation order on it . Never saw anything but happy people at the races in the Park , sad demise in national terms .

My lasting memory of the Park was watching the epic Grundy / Bustino King George there  on a blistering hot July  Saturday meeting  , the racing world stopped for a short never to be forgotten moment that day .

workrider , eventually Sean got a licence in his own name , probably around the start of the seventies from memory .

Unless i am mistaken I think I saw Peter Fitzimmons about 5 years ago at Leopardstown , betting .

I also saw Billy Savage there betting , he used to travel with Sean back in the sixties . Sean and he were cousins .