Harty's strike in sprint handicap with Mary Shoelaces

Father and son team Eddie and Patrick Harty enjoyed a nice success at their local track when bottom weight Mary Shoelaces proved too strong for some better fancied opponents in the Newbridge Silverware Sprint Handicap at the Curragh.

Despite racing from 3lb out of the handicap, the U S Navy Flag filly was always to the fore under Wayne Hassett.

Tracking Maggie McGrath and Eruption in the early stages, Hassett came through to lead inside the final furlong but was quickly tracked by topweight Kendall Roy under Hugh Horgan.

Although bridging the gap to within half-a-length, the latter could never quite get to the front, as the locally trained three-year-old rallied strongly close home.

“You can see that she's very small. She's always had a lot of speed and that's delightful to get,” said Eddie Harty.

“She's run consistently all her life without getting her head in front. She got very close at Dundalk in the spring.

“I was talking to Wayne beforehand and he thought he might hold her up and maybe get into a bit of trouble because it can often work in a race like that.

“I said 'Wayne if she breaks well just go straight on her' because she's not slow and she's not big. Getting in a battle, a big lad against a small lad nine times out of ten a big lad will win.

“It was lovely to see, she is quick. She'll go up for that, rightly so, but won't go up an awful lot. It would be nice to try and find something back here again.

“As a two-year-old she just wanted to go flat out from the get-go. She came out of that and then for a long time having something to run at helped here.

“I thought she'd won at Dundalk with Colin (Keane) one day in the spring but she just got chinned on the line.

“She's breaking now, getting into a stride and then just dropping it and doing the right things. She could move on from here because she's quick enough to do it.”

Additional reporting by Gary Carson.