Team announced for Aussie challenge The 2012 Irish National Hunt Jockeys’ team to travel to Australia for the Ireland v Australia Jockeys’ Challenge was announced at Galway races today. The four jockeys representing Ireland this year will be Ben Dalton, Philip Enright, Declan Bates and Paul Townend. The Irish team will be gunning for success after losing the challenge to the Aussies last year. The challenge has been held in Australia for 25 years, but had previously been staged in Ireland for 11 years and that loss for Ireland brought the overall score to 22 wins for Ireland, 13 for Australia and one draw. Sean Lynch, father of high-profile Irish National Hunt jockey Andrew Lynch, makes his 26th trip Down Under as Irish Team Captain having overseen a total of over 100 travelling jockeys during that time. The team will fly out to Australia on 25th August and will be competing at Balaklava on Cup day, which is the biggest country meeting in Australia with in excess of 30,000 expected to attend. Another feature of the trip will be their participation on Irish day at Morphettville Racecourse in Adelaide. Remarkably, all corporate tickets have already been sold out for this meeting. Brian Kavanagh, CEO of Horse Racing Ireland, said: “I’d like to wish the four travelling Jockeys the best of luck, I am sure they will fly the flag as Irish horses and horse people have been doing for years and hopefully gain the crown back again this year. "This is the 26th year that an Irish team has been invited to Australia to participate in the challenge. Their first visit was in 1987, with that illustrious team consisting of four Champion Jockeys, namely Frank Berry, Tony Mullins, Joe Byrne and Tommy Carmody so there’s plenty of pressure on these young shoulders!”
