Irish Performance of the Week - 1 July 2026
We take a look over last week in Ireland on a relatively quiet week in terms of meetings due to the warm weather.
Polly has the Buckley kennel singing
The final of the Donal Beatty Memorial Corn Cuchulainn went to Singalong Polly on Saturday night at Shelbourne. Lennies Desire had been the dog to beat throughout the opening two rounds but the Pat Buckley-trained winner showed the best early pace to go around in front. The winner was three lengths to the good coming past the stands the first time and had extended that to eight come the second.
The Shelley Fennelly Memorial bitches competition kicked off at Cork with Carrigeen Whit producing the best performance of the opening round. She had taken some big steps forward in recent outings, but this was by far the biggest of her career so far. This was start 31 for her, so she would appear to be a later maturing type.
One of a few back-to-back winners this week was Crafty Coolio at Dundalk, extending the unbeaten start to his career to three. He was led up for the first time, with Robbies Flyer living up to his name from the traps, but the winner grabbed him late on to score by three-quarters of a length.
The youngest on the list this week is Carmac Susie who is an April 25 whelp. Even though Tralee has been conducive to good times over the last couple of years, for one of her age to produce 28.76 on her race debut is spectacular. The first runner from the first litter of sire Carmac King, she was two lengths behind litter brother Carmac Rian in a trial in the middle of May, so his is a name to watch out for.
