Fitzgerald: I was enjoying training her so decided to keep her

One-horse handler Pat Fitzgerald, who hails from the Halfway Bar, which is only a stones throw away from his local point-to-point track, Inch, had a successful day at Turtulla when Champagne Beauty stormed home five lengths clear of her rivals in her season debut performance in the five-year-old mares’ maiden at Turtulla.

“I was absolutely delighted with the win, we ran her at Curraghmore last season where she was only beaten by two and a quarter lengths and I felt like she was unlucky that day, she had a couple of things go against her, so it was great that she won so easily last Sunday,” said the Cork native.

“Stefan Tobin normally rides her, but he got knocked out, his brother Mikey had ridden her in a schooling bumper in Liz Lalor’s the week before and they got on well together, so I decided to put up him up on the day. The Tobin’s are only down the road from us here at home. I do a bit of work with their other brother Paul, who also handles point-to-pointers.”

Champagne Beauty’s connections most certainly reaped the rewards of her success, as she is the only horse Fitzgerald has in training, at his farm in East Cork.

“My son Mikey rides the mare out every day, he is a teacher and he rides her out when he comes home from school. He would have done quite a bit of hunting and showjumping as a young lad and has always kept an interest in the horses.

“Mikey’s girlfriend and her family also share an interest in the mare, they always come along to watch her run, they were there on Sunday when she won.”

With no gallop on his farm, the Cork handler uses local facilities to keep the mare in top form and prepared for race days.

“As we don’t have a gallop here on the farm I use local facilities, Knockacool Gallops is only over the road from me, they have a six furlong uphill sand gallop which is great for getting her fit and I also would go down to Jimmy Mangan’s gallop a good bit.”

Fitzgerald had an opportunity to sell the mare before she ran last Sunday but thought too much of the mare to part ways and is now delighted with his decision to keep her.

“She’s a lovely mare to train, the offer I got was from a trainer in England and I just felt that if I sold her now that it would take her out of the routine she is in.

“She thrives in the smaller yard and sometimes those types of mare’s get lost in the bigger yard’s, my farrier Gary Ahern put him in contact with me but I was enjoying training her too much, so I decided to keep her.”

With a win under her belt, the Cork handler now intends to continue running Champagne Beauty and hopefully return to the winners’ enclosure once again.

“I had her entered at Boulta last week, but I thought the ground wouldn’t suit her and it was also maybe a bit too soon. I will run her again before Christmas, the plan is to enter her in the winners’ race in Boulta next week. If she wins her winners’ race than I would love to run her in a bumper, but we will have to wait and see what happens.”
Fitzgerald has always had an interest in point-to-pointing and at one point even had five or six pointers in training, he also had two or three broodmares, but in recent years he has scaled down his operation to just one broodmare and one point-to-pointer.

“I started out by being involved in a syndicate and the interest in point-to-pointing grew from there.  Gareth Doocey, who has since passed away, trained the syndicate’s mare and I used to go over and ride out for him.

“The mare won back in 1986 and was with Gareth for two years, some of the syndicate decided to pull out, so I decided to take out my own handler’s license and train her myself. She won a couple of times for me and Tom Lombard used to ride her.”