AS MANY as 100,000 punters are expected across the popular seven-day Harvest Racing Festival at Listowel, which opens on Sunday next and continues through until the following Saturday.
The feature event will be Wednesday’s €200,000 Guinness Kerry National, an outing in which Rathkeale trainer Eric McNamara will be represented by his Punchestown Festival winner Donkeys Years, sporting the colours of JP McManus of Martinstown.
McNamara is something of a Listowel specialist and has won three Kerry Nationals during his long spell as a trainer, the most recent coming a decade ago when Mike Fitzsimons’ Faltering Fullback followed-on from Ponmeoath’s (owned by Sean Curran) back-to-back successes in 2007 and 2008.
Meanwhile, it was good to note the current wellbeing of top local jockey Wesley Joyce – who suffered serious injuries in a fall at Galway during the Summer – at Limerick Greyhound Stadium at the weekend.
