Fran Berry will head to Royal Ascot next week with a spring in his step after claiming his 1,000th Irish winner on Wednesday evening.
Berry reached the landmark figure with victory aboard Shabra Emperor in the Follow Us On Facebook Handicap at Fairyhouse and hopes to carry the momentum through to next week's showpiece meeting in Berkshire.
The leading jockey has already been booked to ride the Brendan Powell-trained Dark Emerald in Wednesday's Royal Hunt Cup and expects to have a mount in Tuesday's two-and-a-half-mile Ascot Stakes, a race he has won for the last two years aboard Well Sharp and Domination respectively.
"I've been booked to ride Dark Emerald in the Hunt Cup, which is great, He did very well out in Dubai earlier in the year and while he has top-weight, it looks like it might be quite a compressed handicap, so hopefully he goes there with a chance," said Berry.
"I've been very lucky in the Ascot Stakes, winning it three times in all, and I hope to have a ride again on Tuesday depending on how the weights go.
"Jonjo (O'Neill) has one that might get in and there's also the possibility of a couple for Tony Martin, so we'll see which way it goes.
"I'll be there for the Tuesday and Wednesday and we'll see what we can pick up later in the week."
Berry's 1,000 winners in Ireland are made up by 961 victories on the level and 39 over hurdles and he is thrilled to have reached the milestone.
"I'm delighted to do it. It's something I only became aware of over the winter, so I've had it in my head since the season started," he said.
"I'd say I've maybe had 20-odd winners in Britain as well, between Flat and jumps races, and I might have ridden a 100-odd winners between Japan and Singapore.
"I don't think I've ridden over jumps since maybe 2000 or 2001. I was very lucky when I did it, winning a Ladbroke Hurdle in Ascot and a Coral Cup in Cheltenham and in a roundabout way those wins sort of got me going on the Flat."
