THE PUNCHESTOWN racing festival opened in style yesterday with a jockey in stilettos, soccer players on the stage and some pound shop jewellery on the best dressed ladies.
The stiletto-wearing jockey was Katie Walsh, but Davy Russell may have tried them on too.
They were supporting the Walk in My Shoes campaign, which calls on people to wear mismatching or unusual shoes tomorrow to highlight the stigma associated with mental illness.
Shoes were a recurring feature at Punchestown as Big Shu won the Kildare Hunt Club race held in memory of the racing priest Fr Seán Breen.
Big Shu’s trainer, Peter Maher, was elated but said he would be holding back on the celebrations as he had just come out of retirement to ride in a race on Friday. His weight-loss campaign was going well, thanks to a strict vegetable soup diet. “I lost a stone and a half in two weeks. I don’t recommend it. Cabbage, a lot of cabbage. I can vouch that it works,” he said, grimacing at the memory.
The FAI’s John Delaney was happy to see Big Shu putting his best foot forward, as he had backed him. But, despite his own big shoes – size 12, if you must know – the soccer chief still managed to miss the three penalty kicks he took in the Boylesports penalty shootout. “I came close,” he said sheepishly.
While most people are trying to get the country up and running again, Delaney was looking forward to shutting it down. He hopes the Euro 2012 championships will bring the country to a standstill in June.
“When we do well the country shuts down, and that’s what I grew up with in 1988, 1990, 1994,” he said. “Whoever was working organised their lives around the games, and I think we’re going to see a re-enactment of that this summer. I’ve no doubt the bunting will go up. They’ll be magical nights.”
He was at the races with Republic of Ireland players Simon Cox, Darren O’Dea and Keith Andrews.
O’Dea didn’t mind the pressure ahead of him. “It’s the pressure you want to have. The whole country is getting a really good buzz out of this.”
Naoise Pelin epitomised grace under pressure as she battled nine other finalists to win the first best-dressed competition of the week. The winners from each day will compete in Friday’s final. The 27-year-old primary school teacher from Athy was wearing a hat she had made, a bag from Penneys and a vintage lemon dress that had lain in the back of her wardrobe for years.
She wasn’t the only one economising. One finalist said her mother had knitted her jacket while another bought “three gewgaws in the pound shop” to jazz up her hat.
Among the best-dressed judges was model Pippa O’Connor, still recovering from the trauma of having a photograph of her posterior tweeted by husband Brian Ormond and displayed on The Late Late Show, in case anyone had missed it.
She had put it all behind her, so to speak, and was happy to be dodging raindrops at the races.
Despite rain of biblical proportions being threatened, it’s shaping up to be a good week for the national hunt festival.
Pre-sale tickets were up 23 per cent before the festival started and yesterday’s attendance of 14,345 was up 5 per cent on last year.
Today’s Gold Cup will draw a bigger crowd. Organisers are expecting an attendance of 95,000 before the festival ends on Saturday.
Apparently that will include 20,000 pairs of stilettos.
Yes indeed, it all comes back to the shoes.
