Charle Brune is a pretty special horse for his trainer, Tom Shanahan. Last week, 53-year-old Shanahan got his first-ever win at Wexford Racecourse in the 2m handicap hurdles with Charle Brune. The very next day, Charle Brune raced and won again in the 2m handicap hurdles at Tipperary Racecourse. Not only did Shanahan’s non-winning streak of more than 30 years as a trainer end, but he won twice in just over 24 hours. To celebrate, Shanahan took the 6-year-old Charle Brune to a favorite local pub, appropriately called The Horse and Hound.
? Proud owner Tom Shanahan went to the pub to sink a few pints on Thursday after his horse Charle Brune won at Tipperary.
? Oh, and he took the horse along with him…pic.twitter.com/7MLfCQIJaO— Sporting Life (@SportingLife) May 26, 2019
“Sure it’s a once in a lifetime thing for me,” said Shanahan, according to an article in Racing Post. “I was on my way home from Tipperary and I told Maggie Ryan in the Horse and Hound pub in Dualla that I was coming in for a few pints and that I wouldn’t be on my own. I told her the horse was coming in with me and that I wasn’t taking no for an answer!”
A trip to the pub may not have been the horse’s first choice of ways to celebrate, but he played along.
“There was a tiled floor in the pub and it was tricky getting him in through the doors but the horse trusts me inside out,” said Shanahan. “I could start up a chainsaw beside him and he wouldn’t budge, he has complete trust in me. We had some craic, it was mighty!”
But this story of the underdog trainer and his longshot racehorse doesn’t quite have the Disney ending you might hope for, despite Shanahan referring to his training operation as a “Mickey Mouse setup.” Shanahan will return to his day job at the drain cleaning business that he runs. And Charle Brune will ultimately be racing for a new trainer and owner–he’s set to be sold in the next couple of weeks.
“I’m going to miss him something shocking but I don’t have loads of money so he’ll have to move on,” said Shanahan. “He’ll be some horse for whoever buys him. I could see him coming up the hill at Galway on his own. Now that his head is right, he could be anything.”
Effernock Fizz, Charle Brune and Dolly Dancer all strike Gold in our first 3 races of the evening ?? pic.twitter.com/z10d0oqafY
— Tipperary Racecourse (@tipperaryraces) May 23, 2019
Hurdles is a type of jumps racing done in Ireland and other parts of Europe. It is similar to steeplechase but hurdles are flexible brush jumps, usually 3 1/2 feet high. Comparatively, steeplechase jumps can be much larger and include other elements like ditches and water.
