From RP....
Harrington: "There'll be a big gap in the yard now"
Picture: Macs Joy (centre) racing against his two old rivals Harchibald and Brave Inca at Punchestown in 2005
by Lee Mottershead
JESSICA HARRINGTON heaped praise on Saturday night on her “little tiger“ Macs Joy after one of the most popular stars of the hurdling scene lost his lifeat Cheltenham.
The triple Grade 1 winner and runner-up in last year's Smurfit Champion Hurdle was immediately put down after fracturing a tibia during the Boylesports.com International Hurdle, the 31st race of his distinguished career.
One of themost consistent top-class performers to have graced the jumping stage in recent seasons, Macs Joy enjoyed his finest hours at home. In the winter of 2004-05, he completed a Grade 1 double at Leopardstown, winning the December Festival Hurdle one month before denying Brave Inca and Hardy Eustace by a short head and a head in a gripping renewal of the AIG Europe Champion Hurdle. One year later, he again took Brave Inca's scalp at the Punchestown Festival.
Paying tribute to the eight-year-old, Harrington- whose star's demise followed the recent deaths of Detroit City and Granit Jack - said: “He wasn't very big but he was a real fighter. He was a little tiger and he always tried his heart out. There'll be a big gap in the yard now.
“He actually started very lowly. He won his bumper at Tralee and his maiden hurdle at Downpatrick, and even when he ran in his first handicap it was only off a mark of 111. He just kept on improving, though, and he gave us some great days out.
“Even last season, which was a bad season by his standards, he was always there or thereabouts. He just never ran bad races. He gave me so many great memories, but perhaps the best one for me was when he won the Swinton Hurdle at Haydock. I was feeling so ill having tocome to Haydock after four days at Punchestown, but then he won and gave me a great lift.”
Barry Geraghty, Macs Joy regular rider and his pilot, said: “It's desperate. He was a great servant to us and a great horse in his own right. He'll be sadly missed.”
Macs Joy, who raced in the colours of the Mac's J Racing Syndicate, won on nine occasions, amassing total prize-money of £528,853.