Paul's gallop keeps running
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DAVIDSTOWN horse trainer Paul Nolan has had the help of neighbour Tim Harrington in beating the frost and keeping his charges running. While other yards struggled to keep going in the cold, the gallop at Toberona has been kept in operation with the assistance of Tim's stone burier.
When the gallop succumbed to the frost last month, it was Paul's father Jimmy Nolan who thought of asking the landscaper next door if he had any equipment that might tackle the problem. They discovered that the stone burier was just as effective at breaking up the frost as it is at pulverising stones.
'They are at it with the stone burier since before Christmas. It breaks up the soil,' said the man who runs Boro Landscapes. Normally, the equipment now being used to make sure chaser Joncol and the rest of the Toberona horses are in peak condition is deployed on golf fairways and sports pitches where land is being prepared for seeding.
The burier is worth about ¤20,000 and it has been used regularly to keep the sand on the gallops loose underfoot. As a result, the highly regarded training operation beside the Butcher's Lane has lost very little time to the bad weather.
