Irish Performance of the Week - 14 April 2026
The feature racing in Ireland last week came in the semi-finals of the Con & Anie Kirby Memorial and the two contests did not disappoint. That and all the other top runs in the country are here.
Bockos is gold in the Kirby semis
The semi-final stage of the Con & Annie Kirby Memorial at Limerick saw a pair of impressive winners with Bockos Gold just edging Ballymac Setanta in terms of winning time. This track has been the making of the youngster, a winner just once in six starts at Shelbourne but unbeaten in five runs around Markets Field.
It had been almost seven months since Magical Luka has been seen in race action after exiting the Coral Puppy Cup at Romford at the semi-final stage. Back with Patrick Guilfoyle, he returned with a sprinting success at Dundalk. By 20 spots it was the quickest time of the year so far over 400y at The Ramparts.
Headquarters saw Grouchos Gregor pick up the POW award, stepping up to 600y for the first time with great success. It was comfortably the quickest of the year over a trip that has not been used much in 2026 but only 25 spots off the quickest of 2025 which was set by Ballinabola Joe.
There has been a big chunk of improvement each time that Like A Twin has hit Tralee so far. Third on his debut in 29.94, he made it up to second in 28.81 on his second start before improving to a 28.39 victory last week. It would be difficult for him to improve such a huge amount on his fourth start but he is another Drumatine making a good impression from a very limited crop to this point.
Solo and Go won the award at Curraheen Park a week back, setting a new quickest 330y time of the year. Droopys Apollo was just seven spots slower this week to pick up win number 10 from start 18. He is more than capable over four bends as well which given connections plenty of options to add to that winning tally.
