Racing: Rover ready for the big time

By MIKE DILLON

They don't come any more Irish than Barney McCahill and Eddie Carson, owners of New Zealand's most rapidly rising star galloper Irish Rover, runaway winner of Saturday's $30,000 Waikato Stud Opunake Cup.

McCahill, father of former All Black Bernie McCahill and New Zealand soccer international Terri McCahill, has been in New Zealand for two months short of 50 years but is probably more difficult to understand now than he was when he first arrived here.

The Irishisms he came up with when he raced champion galloper McGinty with racecaller Keith Haub are legendary.

Singapore-based Paddy Busuttin can also come up with a few interesting stories about when he trained three-times Wellington Cup winner Castletown for McCahill in New Zealand.

Ring Barney McCahill's mobile and the voice mail message says: "Hi, this is Barney, leave a message, but I'm not sure how to retrieve it."

No point in being Irish unless you act it.

McCahill will probably need to come up with a few more interesting lines because Irish Rover is heading places.

He has a long way to go to get anywhere near McGinty and Castletown and will probably never get there, but he is going to make a big name for himself.

If you doubt that he will, go back and watch the last 200m of Saturday's feature again.

Millennium is all class when he gets a soft track and he produced a race-winning sprint halfway down the home straight on Saturday.

But he was unlucky that Irish Rover came up with a turbo-charged dash that completely left him behind.

The 2 1/4 lengths Irish Rover put on Millennium in what seemed like little more than half a dozen strides was the calling card of a horse destined for group one weight-for-age honours.

The $60,000 Winter Cup at Riccarton is probably going to be next - a free trip to Christchurch went with Saturday's race - but it is the $500,000 Kelt Capital Stakes at Hastings in which Irish Rover could cement his claim to stardom.

That will come at either his 11th or 12th start, a remarkably short history for a horse to be tackling group-one company.

The astonishing feature is how long it took for Irish Rover to get to the races.

"He was a very slow maturing horse," said McCahill, who gave Trentham-based Eddie Carson a half-share in return for training him.

Carson has tinkered with the odd horse for years and has only a handful in his care. Earlier he was a Wellington contractor.

Irish Rover has now won six of his nine starts.

He is unbeaten on rain-affected footing. His three beaten performances have been on firm tracks, but Carson has always been adamant the horse will be just as powerful on summer surfaces.

One of his fans from now on is Millennium's rider on Saturday, Michael Walker. You could almost hear him saying, "What was that?" when Irish Rover dashed past him at the 150m before racing clear for his seemingly effortless victory.

Winning rider David Walker says he could not stop smiling after the race.

It has been reported that several large offers have been made for Irish Rover, but McCahill says that is news to him.

"Eddie may have fielded a couple of inquiries, but they haven't come to anything," said McCahill.

"I doubt Eddie would part with him, but as they say, money speaks all languages and if a big offer came in he'd probably be on the market."

With a $500,000 race to shoot at in the near future, there will be no panic on the partners to part with their budding star.