You won’t be able to get a pint for love nor money in the Park House Hotel come 3.20pm next Tuesday as all the staff – and customers and guests – will be glued to Cheltenham coverage on TV where proprietor Kitty Carr’s horse Go Native runs in the prestigious Champion Hurdle.
 

But it’s odds-on the champagne corks will be popping and the Moet flowing a few minutes later at the Forster Street venue if the Noel Meade trained six-year-old gelding can make it passed the post first – if he wins, Kitty and the five others in the Galway Docado Syndicate are in line for a £1 million sterling bonus payout.
 

Having already pulled-off a shock 25/1 win in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle in Newcastle in November and the Christmas Hurdle on St Stephen’s Day at Kempton, victory for Go Native next week will secure the WBX.com Hurdling Triple Crown and more than treble his career earnings to date.
 

And he’ll no doubt swell the coffers of Park House staff and customers as well, who by now have claimed part ownership of the horse.
 

“All the staff will be excited on the day and they’ll all be watching the race. The public, customers and staff have been fantastic. We’re just getting great support. The staff have done very well out of him so far. I think he’s won about eight races and a lot of them were when he was 20/1 or 22/1, so they’ve done very well,” she says.
 

Race goers are renowned for their superstitious rituals and when Kitty strolls into the parade ring in Cheltenham just after 3pm next Tuesday, she’ll be decked out in the same stylish outfit she has worn on previous occasions Go Native romped home.
 

“I’m very superstitious so I’m wearing the same black and white outfit I wore when he won in Kempton. I wore it last year when he won on the first race on the first day of the Cheltenham festival and I kept it. Then I wore it again a few other times he won and when I wore it when he won in Kempton everyone was saying ‘you can’t change now’ so I’ll have to wear it again for luck!”
 

Kitty, the other members of the syndicate – her partner Éamon Doyle, sister Maura and her husband Sylvie and their son and daughter Tom and Ann Marie – family, friends and customers of the hotel are all travelling over to Cheltenham on Monday. They are staying in the Castle Hotel and plan to stay until Thursday or Friday “if all goes well”.
 

If Go Native wins the bonus, trainer Meade will collect £150,000, the horse’s groom Alan McIlroy will get £100,000 (he has already earmarked buying a Manchester United season ticket for himself and his son Jack with the winnings) with £50,000 shared among the other stable staff and £700,000 to the syndicate. “It is a lot of money and we’ll probably put it in the kitty – not me kitty but the Kitty,” she laughs.
 

See full story and Cheltenham preview in this week’s Tribune.