Down Royal yesterday announced plans for a new £300,000 Northern Ireland racing festival in November of next year. Highlights of the all-National Hunt meeting on November 5th-6th, 1999 will be the £100,000 Ulster Champion Chase and £50,000 Ulster Champion Hurdle. It will be the biggest meeting in the history of racing in the province.
Speaking at a launch attended by Ulster-born jockeys Tony McCoy and Richard Dunwoody, racecourse chairman Jim Nicholson said: "The Northern Ireland Festival of Racing will not only be one of the most important racing events to be held throughout Ireland and the British Isles, it will become one of the key sporting meetings on this island."
The festival has been underwritten for three years by the Northern Ireland Events Company, a government-sponsored body which was set up in May of last year to bring major sporting events to Northern Ireland.
Abreeze is the lead horse to the Godolphin two-year-olds but he underlined the strength of the stable with his victory at Yarmouth yesterday.
Godolphin hardly dally with the daily business of handicaps, but Abreeze had no bother in shrugging off top weight to collect a stylish victory in the 49's Manny Bernstein Bookmakers Handicap.
