Stephen Halpin takes 'Derby Festival' win ahead of French and Asian assignments

Stephen Halpin took his first win last night in Kildare in the colours of Polygon Sweet Nice (Photo: www.blackumbrellaphotography.com)

By Brian Canty

Stephen Halpin won his first race of the 2013 season last night, Thursday, when he took the honours in the Derby Festival Race put on by Newbridge CC in Kildare Town.

Halpin won from his Polygon Sweet Nice teammate Mark Dowling after they escaped with five laps to go along with young junior rider David Fitzsimmons from the Kilcullen club.

Together, they pulled out a whopping advantage of a minute and a half on the run-in to the finish with Halpin taking the sprint from Dowling and Fitzsimmons rounding out the podium. The race was 45 minutes plus five laps of the 2.5km circuit.

Skerries man Halpin has had an indifferent number of seasons, blighted by illness and injury and while not fully illness free he appears to be going well. He will now turn his attention to Sunday’s Thomas Sheehan Memorial in Carrick-on-Suir.

Halpin knows the circuit very well and will be one of the favourites for the title, having won the At Patrick’s Day race in Carrick in 2012 – and Sunday’s race will take place on that 100 kilometre, three-lap route.

The Dubliner sets of for the Tour of Brittany in three weeks and will follow that up with a very packed schedule in Asia, where he will ride six or seven stage races right up until the end of December.

Last night’s race was also a good hit out for Dowling as they had been part of the scratch group that was let off last. As usual, the A4s were followed by the 3s, 2s and 1s, but the latter wasted little time in eating up the time and over the 2.5km course they were all together before long.

That paved the way for a volley of attacks from the many A1s in the group, with the selection being made with around 15km to go.

The proceeds of last night’s race went to the Patsy Furlong Foundation, an Irish charity founded in 2001 whose aim is to provide help to disadvantaged communities in Nigeria - http://www.patsyfurlongfoundation.org/