Never miss an episode of the Final Furlong podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And now, here's your host, Emmett Kennedy. For the third year in a row, we are broadcasting live on location at Flat Racing's headquarters in Ireland. It's the Currah. It's a fantastic location to be. We've got one of the best pundits in racing, one of our favorite guests, Gavin Lynch alongside. I do say that an awful lot about a lot of people who come on the show, but Gavin is genuinely one of our favorite guests and one of the most popular guests. And you're the favorite presenter. I'd very much doubt that. But we're not here to talk about flat racing. We are here to talk about an incredible charity endeavor that Gavin has been the founding father of and a huge supporter of. And also we want to talk about the national hunt season and what's coming up. So we're going to be chatting about the best of the jumps racing. We're going to talk about two of the most anticipated horses of the season. Some people have written off Constitution Hills. Some people have written off Gallup-Undashamp. We'll get Kevin's thoughts on both and the entire main players for the jump season ahead.

But first of all, curate to curah. It was coast to curah. It's now curah to curah. When is it? And how are things going with it? Yeah, things are going well. It's on Saturday, August the 30th. It's the Pat Smullen Race Day and 8 of Canstrels, Ireland. It started out in 2021 if I'm right.

This is our fifth year.

It started out just as the Coast Currah, as you said back then. But after year two, it became the

Pat Smol and Race Day to make it a bigger and bigger day. You just couldn't have a cycle event.

And now the cycle part is called the Currah to Curra. It's 100K and it starts just there and it finishes just there and we go around out the gate and head left and we head over to Myglair Stud which is a gorgeous place we go to Nase racecourse we go to Punch Town get a bit of food at all them places and then we go to Giltown Stud which is a phenomenal place and then then back to the Currah. We have to be back here before the 327 race. So I'm under instruction. So last year, Evan, there was like... No slow coaches. No. Well, actually there's two groups. One group leaves at 9am. They'll average about 20k an hour led by my better half, Anne-Marie. And then the other group leaves at leaves at 10 a m and we'll meet up at giltown stodham and come back together there'll be about 200 people we're led by the garthi who are amazing they're so helpful and we also have some friends on motorbikes etc so lots of marshals it's nice and safe and yeah it's a great day so we had to be back last year i think there was a

325 race and we pulled in at the furlong pole at 320 and i rang evan i said yeah we're here because juzzi that was tight and um so this year we've we've an extra two minutes oh two bit hold two minutes so but anyway it worked out time wise last year and hopefully work out again then when the 327 race is over, the racing is on here in the corner of that day,

we'll be brought up in front of the stands, go to the parade ring for a picture.

And, yeah, it should be good fun.

We were hopeful of trying to break a world record, but we're going to do that next year

because we already have a massive tagline for this year.

We've raised 840,000 and 4 years. That's phenomenal. And we're very, very hopeful of surpassing the million this year. We're very, very confident and hopeful that people's generosity will continue. And if we get through a million, that'd be great. And I just want to, if you, not to bore people, we just give people an idea of where the money is going, which is really important because

when you give money to a charity, I suppose we don't always know where it goes, but just to say that Cancer Trials Ireland, fantastic charity, they do fantastic work.

So there's now the Patsmullin Chair in UCD that's filled by Professor Gronia O'Kane.

She's in charge of research, education, funding and also cancer trials for pancreatic cancer.

So the projected costs for that position over five years is 1.8 million.

The HAC or the government are giving half and then Cancer Trials, Ireland, have to give half,

which is 900 grand and we're helping towards that with the charity day.

The great thing is that after five years, the government continued to pay half, but UCD will then pay the other half, and the position will be there forever to drive research and trials for pancreatic cancer.

My mum died from that and so to Pat Smullen, the nine times champion.

And yeah, so I think it's, there's certainly a massive point of the day and it's doing a lot of good and they're trying to make Ireland World Centre of Excellence for pancreatic research. So it's great. Well done. Cancer is something that affected both of us.

Ma'am had breast cancer, which she survived. Then it came back on her spine and then in her lungs. So it's brutal. Anything that can be done to fix it, every single person who's watching this has been in some way affected by it. So well done to you. Yeah, so if people want to come along, even if you only want to cycle 12K, we can all cycle 12k surely to god um or 25k we'll have to get you to do a bit next year but uh go to curatecorae sign up there come along it's a brilliant day apie mccoy is flying over from england to take part again and there'll be a few other personalities it's a great day at the cora there's also a 12 furlong race with 20 to 22 jockeys taking part David Condon's coming out of retirement. Good man, David. He won two races at the Chelten Festival.

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