Trainer Ronan McNally secures adjournment of IHRB referral hearing until October

A referral hearing into long-running Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) investigations involving horses trained by Ronan McNally has been adjourned to next month.

A panel was due to meet on Monday to examine a number of cases involving apparent improvement in form shown by horses trained by Co Armagh based McNally.

They include Dreal Deal who won at Navan in September of 2020 having been backed into 6-4 favourite after being 20-1 the previous night.

McNally subsequently trained Dreal Deal to run up a sequence of victories over hurdles and on the flat, ending in a Grade Two success in the Moscow Flyer Hurdle at Punchestown.

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“A referral hearing involving a number of individuals was scheduled to begin yesterday. An adjournment was sought by Mr McNally which was granted by the referrals committee with a new hearing date set for October 17.

“We will have no further comment until the hearing is concluded,” an IHRB spokesman said.

The IHRB has come under fire for the length of time taken to conclude some investigations, with a number of long-running cases referred to it still not concluded.

McNally won an appeal against a €2,000 fine for the running and riding of Ithaka at Limerick last month. A 42-day suspension on the horse was also lifted.

In other news, Aidan O’Brien could be mob-handed as he bids to extend his remarkable winning sequence in Saturday’s Alan Smurfit Beresford Stakes at the Curragh.

The champion trainer has won the prestigious Group Two on 21 occasions in all, including for the last 11 years, with the top class Luxembourg emerging on top last season.

O’Brien has seven of the dozen entries left in the race after Tuesday’s acceptance stage, including the once-raced Denmark who scored at Naas last month.

Other entries, including Hans Andersen, Adelaide Rover and Greenland, also hold entries on Saturday in Newmarket’s Royal Lodge Stakes.

Last weekend’s Irish Champion Stakes winner Luxembourg is just the latest star to emerge from the Beresford over the years.

The subsequent Guineas winner Saxon Warrior was successful in 2017 while other star names on the roll-of-honour include Sea The Stars (2008) and Nijinsky in 1969.