Walshes’ Talented Hurdler Is True Blue
BY SUE SMITHSON: Equestrian Correspondent
True Blue Victory won five races in Ireland in 2003 for his 10th career win, including a graded stakes, for owners Denise and Tommy Walsh of Southern Pines and Denise’s parents Tina and Bill Entenmann of New York.
True Blue Victory, a 6-year-old Irish bred gelding, is trained by Ted Walsh and ridden by Ruby Walsh, both cousins of the Walsh family here.
“It’s the only father-son team to win the Irish Grand National,” said Tommy Walsh. “And the second father-son team to ever win the English Grand National.”
Many members of the Walsh family here traveled across the Atlantic to celebrate Ted and Ruby’s English Grand National win in 2001; Ruby being the youngest winning jockey (then 20) on the world’s most difficult steeplechase track.
He is now Ireland’s leading jump jockey, and True Blue Victory is moving from smaller hurdles to the larger, solid steeplechase fences under his ride.
