Easterbys a good bet for the double

13 April 2012

The Easterby family converged on Scotland from all directions yesterday, in search of an Anglo-Irish sporting double never previously attempted, let alone achieved.

As the racing Easterbys drove over the border from their native Yorkshire with five horses, ready for a 20-legged assault on the Ayr Gold Cup, their rugby cousins were flying into Edinburgh from Dublin for the resumption of the Six Nations and what promises to be a well-fancied Saturday afternoon all round.

On top of the 7- 1 favourite Guinea Hunter and four other runners in the six furlong handicap sprint at Ayr, the family has two more in the green of Ireland ready to take a different punt over a much longer distance against Scotland at Murrayfield ? the first of three matches postponed fromlastspring because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic. By the time Peter, Mick and Tim learn their fate in the 4.05, Guy and Simon ought to be more than halfway through their first Six Nations match in harness, so to speak.

In making the long journey into the Irish team via the English and Welsh Leagues, the determined pair have had to clear an obstacle course of Grand National proportions.

The brothers, English-born and Welsh-based, took a roundabout route towards making the most of Irish qualification provided by their mother Katherine, an Irish hockey international from Blackrock in County Dublin.

They have made it together into the same team, despite Guy breaking a leg and Simon rupturing an achilles tendon.

No sooner had the pair recovered than foot- and- mouth brought Ireland?s national team to a standstill. Now, at last, they have joined forces. Guy ? 30 and four years older than Simon ? has ousted Peter Stringer at scrum half to join his younger brother, who had already muscled his way in on the blindside of the back row.

By a strange quirk of fate, the turf connection between fraternal Irish rugby internationals and the Sport of Kings goes back exactly 100 years, to the last time a pair of brothers lined up for Ireland against Scotland in Edinburgh.

Jack Ryan, who locked the scrum in those days with brother Mick, achieved far greater fame in 1928 by training the first 100-1 winner of the Grand National, Tipperary Tim. The Easterby family have gone close to doing the same ? albeit not at quite the same odds. The brothers? grandfather, Walter, had two top-three finishes in the Aintree classic over a period spanning 20 years, while Peter trained two-time Champion Hurdle winner Night Nurse in 1976 and 1977.

?Everyone?s heard of Tipperary Tim, which is very interesting because my father had a second in the National two years later with Melrose Belle,? said the Easterbys father, Henry.

?Then he had a third place in 1950 with Acton Major.?

Easterby senior, who once played in the same Cumbrian school team as a future England captain and Lion, Peter Dixon, will be at Murrayfield ? hoping Ireland keep winning to make it a two-way Grand Slam decider when England go to Lansdowne Road on October 20.

?I might put a fiver on Ireland, just a fiver,? he said. ?I?m immensely proud of what Guy and Simon have achieved for Ireland.

?They always wanted to play for the country and I?ve been going there from the age of three, with my father having been in the horse trade.? Mick Easterby headed north yesterday, preparing for a hectic end to the week.

?As soon as the race is over, I?ll be watching the rugby on television,? he said. ?It?s marvellous for the the family that the lads are doing so well. Absolutely marvellous.?

Before setting out to prove that the family?s sporting expertise extended beyond racing horses on the flat and over fences, their claim to rugby fame had been limited to Guy appearing in the same school team at Ampleforth College as a London boy with a strange sounding name, one Lawrence Dallaglio.

Since then, the older Easterby brother has moved from Harrogate to Rotherham, then on to London Scottish, Ebbw Vale and Llanelli. Simon, given the No.6 jersey in preference to Eric Miller and Alan Quinlan, had already arrived there, via Harrogate and Leeds.

Given the family?s track record for producing winners, Ireland?s Grand Slam ambitions would appear to be in safe hands

But even if the brothers overcome odds which will be a lot less than 100-1, they will be hard pushed to emulate Jack Ryan.

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