Smullen nominated for prized jockey award

Offaly jockey Pat Smullen has been nominated for a Flat Award at the 2014 Horse Racing Ireland Awards. Newstalk presenter and racing enthusiast Ivan Yates will be master of ceremonies for the awards, which take place at Leopardstown Racecourse on Monday, December 8.

Crowned Irish Flat Champion Jockey for the seventh time in 2014, Pat rode over 100 winners for the first time in his career. At Royal Ascot he notched a notable double courtesy of Mustajeeb in the Jersey Stakes and Anthem Alenander in the Queen Mary Stakes while Pale Mimosa won the Lonsdale Stakes at York and Forgotten Rules took the QIPCO Champions Long Distance Cup at Ascot in October.

Other big race wins at home were achieved on Tarfasha in the Blandford Stakes, Fascinating Rock in both The Ballysax Stakes and The Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial while he won four races on the prolific Carla Bianca and partnered Majestic Queen to take the Ballyogan Stakes at Leopardstown.

Brian Kavanagh, Chief Executive of HRI said: “The HRI Awards will give us the chance to celebrate and acknowledge the extremely high standards across all sectors of Irish racing. Each of the nominees announced today deserve to be recognised for their achievements throughout the year and all categories are very competitive.”

Members of the public will have an opportunity to vote on the ‘Outstanding Achievement’ category, through the HRI Awards app, which will be available for download from iTunes and Google Play next week. Forms will be available at Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) reception for those without a smart phone. The Awards App contains information about the awards and each of the nominees, an image gallery, all the latest news and will also allow members of the public to watch the awards live.