Kerley family’s fine Corn Cuchulainn tradition is maintained by Limerick winner

Glinpier’s win in the feature event, the Corn Cuchulainn, at last week’s running of the Dundalk & Dowdallshill coursing two-day meeting helped the Kerley family complete a noteworthy four-timer.

First run in 1948, the Corn Cuchulainn is a nominator event in which a selected group choose a greyhound to run in their names and pay a fee for the privilege.

Nominator events are a throwback to time of the landed gentry, when lords, ladies and big landowners gathered at meetings throughout this country, hoping to earn bragging rights. It should be quickly said that none of today’s nominators – your writer among them – belongs to that category.

Michael Kerley, senior, was a founder-member of the Dundalk & Dowdallshill club back in the historic year of 1916 and was included among the nominators when the Corn Cuchulainn first appeared on the programme.

He had the first of his three wins when the Lurgan runner, Drumna Nut, prevailed in 1956, and was again successful with Larry Shields’ Crossmaglen-based runner, Wonder Mist, in 1964.

Those wins came when the promoting club’s running grounds were at the centre of the Dundalk racecourse – where the dog track now stands – and it was two years after the switch to The Commons in Dromskin that the Kerley treble was brought up, Prix Noble winning in 1972.

Mrs Patricia Kerley took over the nomination on the death of her husband, and she had the first of two wins with Plainsman, in 1979. De Hoeot followed the Matt Bruton-owned winner on to the victory podium nine years later.

Michael Kerley, junior, a long-time stalwart with the promoting club, succeeded his mother, and he, too, brought up a double, with Rossmore Blue (1999) and Yougetiton (2001) running in his name.

The family nomination is now jointly-held in the name Michael’s brother, Gerry, and his good friend, former Louth and Dundalk Gaels footballer, Niall O’Neill.

After a few years of trying, the lads saw their representative get the verdict in this year’s final, Glinpier proving too good for the warm favourite, Gortmelia Sophie, in the final.

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The winner, an outsider on the second morning, is owned and trained in Ballyneety by Jer Woods, who made the long journey from Co Limerick each day. This victory was the climax of a meeting which also saw two of the supporting stakes go to local owner, Danny Kerr.

First to win for the man from the Quay was Droopy’s Livewire, in the Workers’ Stake, and next up was Ballybucks, successful in the Coffey Cup.

The meeting was favoured by fine weather, though the first day’s sport had to be delayed by frost. The crowd was one of the biggest of recent years.