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The Sweeney Guide to the Irish Turf from 1501 to 2001
SWEENEY, Tony & Annie & HYLAND, Francis. The Sweeney Guide to the Irish Turf from 1501 to 2001. Owners, Trainers, Jockeys, Sires, Records, Great Races, Flat & Jumping, Places of Sport, Past & Present, The Dish Spiced with Anecdotes, Facts, Fancies. Profusely illustrated with coloured plates. Dublin, De Burca, 2002. Folio. pp. 648. Bound in full buckram gilt. €95.00
TONY SWEENEY, Anglo Irish racing journalist and commentator: For 42 years Irish Correspondent of the Daily Mirror, for 35 years he shared RTE TV commentary with the O'Hehirs, Michael and Tony. Now a form analyst with the Irish Times, he is also author of Ireland and the Printed Word & Irish Stuart Silver, a Catalogue Raisonné for which in 2001 he was awarded a Doctorate of Literature by the National University of Ireland.
ANNIE SWEENEY, French stage and screen ballet dancer whose movie credits included L’Homme au Parapluie Vert starring Fernandel and Chanteur de Mexico with Luis Mariano. In her role as turf statistician she has supplied course facts and figures to the Irish Times for over a quarter of a century.
FRANCIS HYLAND, Irish stockbroker who turned bookmaker, and is currently chairman of the Irish National Bookmakers Association. A passionate racing researcher, he co-authored with Guy St John Williams, histories of The Irish Derby & The Jameson Irish Grand National.
This trio have between them invested 12,000 hours in original research to produce what is not merely the most comprehensive set of Irish racing records and results but a work that, as a single volume, is unique in its scope in World Turf Literature. For illustration it draws largely on the colour picture libraries of Caroline Norris & Ed Byrne with Eddie Chandler supplying many images, new to print.
Its one year in a line printing of the results of the Irish English and French Classics carries the record of multiple scorers back from 2001 through 1800. The complete Aintree Grand National listing, not only includes owners, trainers and jockeys but also identifies all but a handful of the breeders, so many of whom were Irish, operating on a small scale. Irish racing now becomes the first in the World with a record that names the champion money-winning and race-winning owner for every year since 1751 while there are similarly detailed records for sires and horse of the year along with champion jockey details that commence in 1812 and leading trainers in both money and race categories since 1890. At home the name of any horse, trainer or jockey who managed to win one or more "Top Twenty" races by value in any year since 1850 can be found by reference to the exhaustive indexes. In separate lists are to be found details of all the major race winners around the World won by Irish trainers and the great races that were won by Irish-born jockeys, a record that starts in 1784. For those with a special interest in local history there are two county by county documents that at last make it possible to pick out 400 different racetracks whose results have been published since 1751 in the Irish Racing Calendar. Adding to this there are also names and addresses of active stud farms that stretch back as far as 1790 naming the notable stallions that covered mares there. These facts and figures are wrapped up in nine word essays sharing much new historical information and nine picture essays that in turn record in 1 12 superb colour pictures Irish champions, be they people, horses or artefacts that range ftom the Bunbury Cup of 1702 to Johannesburg being acclaimed in the winner's enclosure at Belmont Park after the Breeders Cup Juvenile of 2001.
Darley Arabian
SWEENEY, Tony & Annie & HYLAND, Francis. The Sweeney Guide to the Irish Turf from 1501 to 2001. Owners, Trainers, Jockeys, Sires, Records, Great Races, Flat & Jumping, Places of Sport, Past & Present, The Dish Spiced with Anecdotes, Facts, Fancies. Profusely illustrated with coloured plates. Dublin, De Burca, 2002. Folio. pp. 648. Bound in full green goatskin with Nijinsky, Sadler's Wells and Arkle embossed in gilt on upper cover, all edges gilt. Signed by the partners the publisher and binder. With inset CD ROM carrying the full text of the work making it possible for subscribers to computerise the future work. For the next four years they will also receive an annual printout of the updates.
Limited Edition Price: €950
Apart from racing enthusiasts, this is a most valuable work for students of local history as it includes extensive county by county records of race courses and stud farms, with hitherto unfindable details.
Last updated: 15/10/08 © Deburca 2003
