Another Irish success down under Ben Dalton and Philip Enright filled the first two placings in the Leslie Short Steeple at Morphettville earlier today to put the Irish team some 15 points ahead in the Irish vs Australia Jump Jockeys Challenge. But just over an hour later the Aussies hit back with a one-two in the Leslie Short Hurdle, another $A40,000 race with Steve Pateman beating Arron Lynch, ahead of Declan Bates and Paul Townend. The final points score was 39 ½ to 31 ½ , giving the Irish team a 23rd success in the series after 37 confrontations over the years. A delighted Dalton described his winner Rabbuka, a 9 year-old by Giant's Causeway, as “possibly a 0-109 horse at home but he won well, jumped great and made all.” Trained by that stalwart of the series Eric Musgrove, Rabbuka won by 10 lengths from Enright's mount Gravitas, which started a marginal favourite over the winner. The first two finished a long way clear (117 lengths) of the third finisher while the other runner “lost rider.” Top rider on the Victorian jump circuit, Steve Pateman missed his early flight from Melbourne but still arrived in time to score on the classy, Paddy Payne-trained, Lord Of The Song, an easy winner of the hurdle under 71 kilos, by 9 ¾ lengths. Paul Townend's original mount was a scratching from this race but Enright stood down to give him the ride on General Mackjosh. The fall of Richard Enyon in the earlier hurdle though meant that Enright again came in for a mount on Forty Twenty, second choice in the market but a trailer at the end. Even if a horse is scratched the rider still gets paid, the jump jockeys' fee in Australia being $A286! A good end to a truncated series, banishing thoughts of last year's disaster, with Irish reputations fully restored and Morphettville's Irish Day another resounding success for the South Australian Jockey Club.
