Boost For The 2006 Irish National Hunt Festival Awards The Leading Trainer and Leading Jockey Awards for the 2006 Irish National Hunt Festival have received a major boost. A ?5,000 prize for both categories has been kindly sponsored by local auctioneers, Conway Keane. The Irish National Hunt Festival takes place from Tuesday April 25th to Friday, April 28th and has a total prize fund of just under ?2.3 million. Trainer, Willie Mullins, has had a stranglehold on the Leading Trainer prize at the festival, having won it for the past two years when training a total nine winners. An obvious favourite land the spoils again this year, Mullins commented on hearing of the generous prize 'the prize fund at the Irish National Hunt Festival is phenomenal anyway and to have the added bonus of a ?5,000 leading trainer award is super. There are many festivals in this period of time to run our horses at and after all, money talks!' Past and present champion jockeys Paul Carberry and Ruby Walsh have each won the Leading Jockey award at the Punchestown festival in the past two years and judging by their associated yard's track record at the festival, could easily be battling it out for the ?5,000 prize yet again. Dick O´Sullivan, General Manager of Punchestown is delighted with the support that the festival is receiving from local businesses and stated 'Sponsoring awards such as these is a novel way to get involved in the Irish National Hunt Festival and Jack Conway of Conway Keane Auctioneers has been incredibly generous. A ?5,000 prize for both the leading trainer and jockey is sure to go down a treat. We will keep the public and the media up to date on leader board positions throughout the meeting and it is sure to become a thrilling contest.'
