(Wilcosdiana's owner Tony Wilson accepting the award from Denis Hickey)
ITBA CHAMPION MARE - Wilcosdiana
This is the fifth year the award was sponsored by ITBA, with the winner being chosen by their individual rating which follows the same format as the Champion Hunter Chaser award.
An encouraging figure from the season gone by is that there was an increase of four-year-old mares’ from 145 to 152 matched with 113 different handlers training a mare to win.
Irish Thoroughbred Marketing staged their annual draw for all handlers who trained a mare to win a point-to-point during the season. This year’s winners are Daniel Kenneally, Richard Black, John P O’Callaghan, Thomas A Keogh and Patrick Leahy.
All five winners received a €1,000 voucher redeemable on a filly at any of the three store sales in Ireland (Goffs Land Rover Sale, Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale and the Tattersalls Ireland August National Hunt Sale).
New records were broken this season gone by when Lust For Glory, who won on her debut at Lisronagh in October broke the record for a four-year-old mare selling for £240,000 to Nicky Henderson at the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham November sale.
This year’s Champion mare, Wilcosdiana won her first race of the season at Rathcannon in October in the Mares’ open beating Bloodstream by 18 lengths.
She then won the Cork hunter chase in November by 11 lengths when beating Knockraha Boss. The pair survived a very bad final fence mistake which led to her rider, Maxine O’Sullivan, be nominated for ATR ride of the month.
The daughter of Flemensfirth eased to a 47 length victory in the Cork Easter hunter chase with Michael O’Sullivan aboard where she received a career high rating of 108 before finishing third in the Joseph O’Reilly to Sizing Coal and then third in the Killarney hunter chase to Minella For Value.
This consistent mare beat the geldings on both of her hunter chase wins.
The eight-year-old is owned by Tony Wilson and her current handler is Eugene O’Sullivan.
(Wilcosdiana has not finished out of the first four on 14 of her 16 starts to date)
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