Image © Healy Racing
A new year of four-year-old maiden races gets underway this Sunday, with Ballinaboola and Bellharbour set to host the first two four-year-old maiden races of 2025.
The races have received 19 and 18 entries respectively, and one horse entered at both venues on either side of the country is Quickkick, who could become the first runner in the pointing fields from the first Irish crop of Feel Like Dancing.
The Group 3 Bahrain Trophy winner has already enjoyed success in the Irish point-to-point sphere with horses he sired when standing in France at Haras du Lion.
Chief amongst them was Dancing City who made the perfect start to his career by landing a Borris House four-year-old maiden when with Cormac Farrell in 2021.
Sold privately to prolific owners Joe and Marie Donnelly, he went into training with Willie Mullins, for whom he has progressed from strength to strength, winning seven times, including a trio of Grade 1 prizes over hurdles last season.
Beginning at last year’s Dublin Racing Festival, he gamely claimed the Nathanial Lacy Solicitors novice hurdle, and after finishing third in the Heavy-ground Albert Bartlett at the Cheltenham Festival, he proved his toughness by beating subsequent Grade 1 winner The Jukebox Man in the Sefton novices’ hurdle at Aintree.
He then finished off the season in style with his third Grade 1 victory of the campaign in the Channor Real Estate Group novices’ hurdle at the Punchestown Festival, and he has translated that winning form to fences this season.
Two from two this term over the larger obstacles; his latest success came last weekend when he jumped well from the front to make all in a Grade 3 contest at Naas, which saw him move into second position in the ante-post market for the Brown Advisory at the upcoming Cheltenham Festival.
Dancing City showed a fine burst of speed after the last to keep on strongly and run away from Bioluminescence to make it 3 on the bounce for Townend and Mullins today at Naas@PTownend | @WillieMullinsNH pic.twitter.com/Un8xwZqSBP
— Naas Racecourse (@NaasRacecourse) January 26, 2025
Feel Like Dancing moved to Whytemount Stud ahead of the 2022 covering season, and bred by the Senorita Partners, Quickkick, could prove to be his first Irish crop point-to-point runner.
He may be out of a Desert Prince mare that won twice on the flat in Britain over 7f and 1m4f, but he is already well-related to a number of proven jumpers, most notably his half-brother Nyiri.
He has become a smart chaser in France, most recently winning a Grade 3 contest at Cagnes-Sur-Mer at the beginning of January. Hurricane Hollow, another half-brother, has won four races in Britain for Keith Dalgleish and Dan Skelton.
Quickkick himself was purchased by the Baltimore Stables team of James and Ellen Doyle at last year’s Goffs Arkle Sale for €28,000, and he is one of three horses that they have entered in this Sunday’s four-year-old maiden races.
