Club News 21/06/03 St. John's win with furlongs to spare at Raceday 2003

Corrigan Park was momentarily mistaken for Royal Ascot at 11am on Saturday last as hundreds of people dressed in their best converged on the Club to be transported to the Down Royal Racecourse for the St. John's Raceday 2003.

They were blessed with fine weather for the event and once the buses pulled into the Racecourse and the many people cantered across the racetrack they were treated to the hospitality and luxury of the St. John's Pavilion - complete with private toting and bar facilities, wide-screen televisions to watch the races, live band and buffet. It was the first time an event of this kind was ever staged at the Down Royal Racecourse by a GAA club.

Master of Ceremonies Gene Fitzpatrick was on hand throughout the day to provide the entertainment, comedy and to hand out the prizes, the band "Suits You" providing the music.

The Celebrity Tipster proved quite useful for the majority of the Johnnies Pavilion, who were perhaps not as familiar with the sport as Collie McKnight, Aidan Kelly or Brendan Mackin, picking a number of the eventual winners. 'Any Dream Will Do', 'Tara's Gift' and 'Blue Corrig' proved to be particularly good bets on the day.

Whilst there were those whose formula for betting consisted of picking the horse whose jockey's colours closest resembled the Johnnies blue and white jersey, others looked for more personal cryptic links in the horse's names - Brian McFall backing the horse
'It Wasn't Me!', Brendan Mackin backing 'Any Dream-Mmmm… will do' and Stephen Thompson backing 'Gallop Forest Gallop!'.

On the losing end of the Races was the likes of Chris Clarke who admitted to always being "the bridesmaid never the bride" when it came to backing the winning horse. Whereas on the other hand some people found the winning so easy they had wondered why they had been teaching for 20+ years when they could have retired long ago if only they'd become professional gamblers instead of going to university when they were 18. (Joe McGuinness in particular must have done very well considering his 'Cheshire Cat-like' grin didn't leave his face from the first race straight through to the cabaret in Corrigan Park that evening).

Whatever the result on the racetrack it didn't effect the successful day for St. John's GAC, which from start to finish proved to be worthy of everyone's efforts over the last year.

Entertainment on the buses for the return journey was free, courtesy of a drunken 10-verse rendition of 'The Fields of Athenry' though, admittedly, once back at the Club most people's memories get a little hazy as to what actually went on. I can only assume that there was a bit more drink taken, that the dance floor was full of well co-ordinated men and women and everyone went home at a reasonable hour.

All members and non-members who attended the Raceday are to be congratulated for their support of the Club's fundraising initiative, and of particular note the organisers namely Gerard Robinson and Tommy Hall plus Jim Gough, Pat Gallagher, Neilly Crawford and Paul Collins - without whom the event would not have been the success that it was.