Carrig collects to give Browne a first at Fairyhouse Hunter chaser West Of Carrig (9/2) took the plunge into handicap company for Fairyhouse’s Jump Into January Handicap Chase today and rewarded owner/amateur-rider Adrian Browne with a first racecourse success. Browne, son of winning trainer Don Browne and with five point-to-point wins, had steered longstanding racecourse maiden West Of Corrig on 18 previous outings, which included two recent runner-up efforts in hunters chases. Boldly surrendering that hunters’ certificate by competing in handicaps, Browne also went for it in today’s race and made all the running on the nine-year-old, who held off runner-up Our Boy Rocky by 2.5 lengths. “There’s normally great support every day we go racing with uncles, aunts and everything, but of course he wins when nobody comes, only two brothers!” quipped Browne. He added “I’ll never beat the first day winning a point-to-point at home in Carrigtwohill (Cork) but this comes very close in fairness, it’s brilliant.” Regarding West Of Corrig, he added “he’s won point-to-points for us and he’s been a great horse from the start. He’s a great lad to jump and travel and coming up here today, we said we’d let him roll away, go a good gallop and see what happens. In fairness he stayed going the whole way to the line. “I rode him here in a hunters chase in November when we bumped into Con’s Roc, who is a very good horse, and we then bumped into Gordon (Elliott, trainer) the last day in Limerick during Christmas when we got caught for speed going down the hill. “It was nice to come up here today and get the win. “We’ll go to the pub in Carrig tonight and see where that ends up!” Quotes from Gary Carson
