Ndaawi and Jack Kennedy get dramatic Galway Hurdle in the stewards room after Helvic Dream thrown out

Irish Times

a day ago

At the end of a superbly pulsating
Guinness Galway Hurdle
the outcome was coldly decided by the stewards who threw out first past the post Helvic Dream in favour of Ndaawi amid remarkable scenes on Thursday.
Just a head separated the pair after a superb duel up the Ballybrit hill with Helvic Dream initially looking to have completed a rare cross-code double.
Winner of the Group One Tattersalls Gold Cup on the flat in 2021, Noel Meade's star briefly looked to have pulled off another big-race success over hurdles.
However, jockey Donagh Meyler's celebrations proved premature as re-runs of the finish showed Helvic Dream leaning into Ndaawi who challenged up the rail. Drone shots from above in particular looked to put the outcome in doubt.
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Sorry to see Helvic Dream losing the Galway Hurdle but this angle shows that the stewards had no choice
— Tony Mullins (@tonymullins84)
Jack Kennedy on Ndaawi never stopped riding but told Ndaawi's trainer Gordon Elliott he would get the race in the stewards' room. Crucially Meyler didn't switch his whip hand and after a lengthy inquiry that had a 24,381 Ballybrit crowd on tenterhooks the positions were reversed.
It meant Elliott won his first Galway Hurdle and completed the big festival double having landed the Plate with Western Fold less than 24 hours earlier. He is the first trainer to win both races in the same week since the late Edward O'Grady in 1979.
Meade indicated his intention to appeal the decision which had considerable rarity value at the end of a major race in Ireland. Some of those struggling for comparison went back as far as 2012 and Duntle's disqualification at the end of the Group One Matron Stakes in Leopardstown.
However, any presumption that the stewards panel chaired by Justice Raymond Groarke might opt for an 'as you were' outcome to a marginal call proved wide of the mark.
Jockey Jack Kennedy celebrates after winning The Guinness Galway Hurdle Handicap. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
It was a bitter result for Meade, the veteran trainer who first won the Galway Hurdle all of 43 years before and had finished runner-up to his friend Elliott in the previous day's Plate with Jesse Evans, himself twice runner-up in Thursday's feature.
Meyler quickly bounced back by winning the very next race with a daring run up the rail on Strong Link but described the big race outcome as a 'horror show.' He subsequently got a two-day suspension for careless riding.
'Jack said as soon as he came in, and before they called the stewards' inquiry, that he thought we'd get it. He said the other leant on top of him for the last 50 yards and intimidated him all the way to the line,' Elliott said.
'I'm delighted I won the race, but Noel and I are very good friends. It's just not the same when you win it in a stewards' inquiry. Rules are rules though and if they're broken, the result deserves to be changed,' he added.
Kennedy's prediction proved spot on and the jockey commented: 'It's not a nice way to get it, but I do feel I'd have won had I not received the interference. I'm delighted we came out on the right side of it. If Donagh came off of me in the final 100 yards we'd have got going again.'
An Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board spokesman said: 'The stewards were satisfied the first past the post had caused interference. The winning margin being a head, the stewards were satisfied that as a consequence of the interference the placings should be reversed.'
Having finished runner-up to Nurburgring in the race in 2024, Ndaawi ultimately secured the spotlight. The prospect of an appeal however means the reverberations from perhaps the most dramatic Galway Hurdle in its over 100-year history are likely to run and run.
The sole British hopeful in the big race, Dysart Enos, failed to fire, but it was a different story in the big flat race of the day, the Listed Corrib Stakes, as Tropical Island sprang a 40-1 surprise for Yorkshire based Richard Fahey.
Luke McAteer quickly got to the front on the cross-channel runner and Tropical Island kept on stoutly up the hill.
Joseph O'Brien failed to secure a third Galway Hurdle, with the 4-1 favourite Puturhandstogether only tenth, but managed a double on the flat through Glenroyal and Which Wolf Wins.
Despite sunny conditions, Thursday's Ladies Day attendance of 24,381 was down from last year's 25,290.