Quite a few of last season’s young Horse & Pony Racing (known as ‘flapping’) riders were in action in the Derrinstown Stud Apprentice Handicap at Tipperary this evening, with victory in the end going to Kateeva under twenty year old Katherine O’Brien.

O’Brien, partnering her second racecourse winner, is herself a graduate of the flapping circuit from two seasons ago whereas apprentice jockeys Conor Keane, Ross Coakley, Darren Egan, Mark Monaghan, Shane Gray and Danny Benson each competed in ‘flaps’ last season.

Gray fared best of last season’s group finishing second on Queen Grace ahead of third placed Bonnie Acclamation (Mark Monaghan up), Measured Approval (fifth under Danny Benson), One Of Three (eighth placed under Ross Coakley), Erins Gal (tenth under Darren Egan) and Ibelieveinmiracles (thirteenth under Conor Keane).

Gray (from Dundalk and a brother of jump jockey Stephen Gray) along with Benson (16 years old, from Dunshaughlin and with 87 flapping winners), Conor Keane ( who has partnered over 100 flapping winners and is the 16 year old son of trainer Ger Keane) and last year’s Flapping Jockeys’ Championship runner-up Ross Coakley (16, from Monasterevin with over 100 wins in the discipline) have each made the breakthrough with winners on the racecourse in recent months.

Of the ‘lesser’ experienced, Darren Egan, 19 from Longford, has 25 wins flapping wins while Mark Monaghan, 16 and based with Michael Halford, has 30 wins.

Thomas Weekes