Offaly style icon wins stay at five-star Ashford Castle at Guineas Festival at Curragh

An Offaly style icon won a stay at the five-star Ashford Castle at Guineas Festival at Curragh 

At the Tattersalls Irish Guineas festival in the Curragh Racecourse Cleo Knight, from Offaly was the winner of the Ashford Castle Style Icon award. 

Off the track it was vintage, sustainability and charity shop fashion all the way as Cleo Knight from Portarlington in Co Offaly won the first racing summer style competition of the season the Ashford Castle Style Icon award.

Ms Knight (33) is a business lecturer in Ballyfermot College wore a vintage dusty pink suit from the 1980’s, her hat was bought in a NCBI charity shop, shoes were by New Look and her handbag was borrowed from her sister Davinia. She credits her mother Christine who runs a charity shop for the local hospice for her love of fashion and style and would have helped out organising charity fashion shows as a child growing up.

 “I’m absolutely thrilled, the win is totally unexpected and its my first time being a finalist and winning at a racecourse style competition. I’m always all about sustainable and vintage fashion where a lady can get a lot of bang for her buck with clothes that are accessible for all women. I’m going to bring my fiancée Stephen Murphy with me to Ashford Castle so he can see that all of this effort dressing up is very worth it!” she said when she found out she had won the top prize.

The winner of the Ashford Castle Style Icon competition won a sumptuous stay in the 5* Ashford Castle hotel, in Co Mayo for two people in a Junior State suite, with a full Irish breakfast included each morning, an exquisite five-course Table d’Hote dinner in the opulent George V Dining Room on one evening, afternoon tea for two, plus a Bouchard Finlayson wine tasting experience in the castle's historic wine cellars. In addition to this opulent getaway, the stylish winner also won luxury and designer prizes from renowned fashion brand LK Bennett and prestigious French champagne house Moet & Chandon.

The prestigious fashion competition was judged by style expert Clementine McNiece for Moet & Chandon, Lisa Toomey from Ashford Castle, Dawn Fulcher from LK Bennett and RTE’s Blathnaid ni Chofaigh.

On the track the feature Tattersalls 1000 Guineas classic was won by the English raider and favourite Fallen Angel trained by Kark Burke whilst the other big race of the day the Tattersalls Gold Cup was won by the second favourite White Birch trained by Joseph Murphy in Upton Co Cork.

Head of Marketing at the Curragh Racecourse Ruth Norton said: “We had an amazing weekend of racing action and fantastic style here at the Curragh Racecourse and we were delighted to see so many people from all over Ireland enjoy themselves here. There’s no rest here now as we immediately launch into our preparations for the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby, one of the biggest races in the world, which takes place on the last weekend of June and already there’s huge interest from the public for our biggest event of the year.”