SITTING PRETTY Eamonn Sheridan (building contractor), John Staunton (Chairman, Racecourse Committee) and John Flannelly (Racecourse Manager) are pictured at the Ballinrobe course last week.
Pic: Michael Donnelly
Staying on course The new racing season is ready for off at Ballinrobe Mike Finnerty HERE comes the Summer. You can feel it from the moment you walk through the gates at Ballinrobe Racecourse, smell it in the freshly-cut grass, and see it in the way the workers feverishly put the finishing touches to the redevelopment work. Not to mention the weather.
On this particular Wednesday afternoon, glorious sunshine sprays every inch of the enclosure and racetrack. The sound of a water-feature can be heard bubbling in the background as hammers and drills compete with one another in the distance. The stage is being set.
The West of Ireland’s first race meeting of the new year takes place here tomorrow evening (Wednesday), 87 years after horses and punters first wandered down the Castlebar Road and into the town’s new racetrack.
The seven race card gets underway at 5.35pm with a mixture of hurdle and flat races to keep everybody entertained. But that is only half the story.
Since the gates were closed at the racecourse last September, four projects have been undertaken and €240,000 has been spent. The end results are a bigger machinery workshop, 20 new stable roofs, the conversion of the old gents toilets into a ladies, and the construction of a brand spanking new gents toilet block.
All this plus a state-of-the-art on-course Ladbrokes betting shop, complete with a bank of screens that will show racing from Catterick to Cork.
Gone are the days when a trip to the races involved standing around for five hours, getting soaked, eating a cold bag of chips and joining the queue to a toilet that looked like it had been bombed during World War II. This is a whole new world, where sport, entertainment and comfort are all part of the show.
“We’ve been upgrading our facilities now for ten years, since the grandstand was built in 1998,” explains John Flannelly, Racecourse Manager. “It’s a progressive thing and if we want to keep people coming in through the gates we have to keep improving our facilities.
“When we began our development work we were very lucky that we have workmanship of a very high calibre in the area. The likes of Eamonn Sheridan can come in and do very good, cost-effective work for us and the HRI see that, and have no qualms about coming back to us with funding for further work as a result.”
“The last number of years have been good for racecourses in Ireland due to the Celtic Tiger,“ adds John Staunton, Chairman of the Ballinrobe Racecourse Committee. “A lot of people go racing now purely for the social aspect, as well as the hardened race-goers, so the social aspect is a very big part of the experience now.
“We’ve got a lot more fixtures as a result of the improvements that we’ve carried out. It’s not so long ago that we were getting two or three race meetings a year. We now have nine.”
We take a stroll around the deserted enclosure, past the neat and tidy parade ring and in front of the towering Coranna Restaurant and weigh-room. We stop to look out across the track that looks as smooth as a snooker table with the shadow of the grandstand yawning towards the finishing post. You cannot but be impressed by the stunning vista.
“Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) are putting us up there as an example of what a small, country track can achieve,” says John Flannelly. “ They’re very supportive of us and they’re helping to fund our redevelopment projects. From a racing point of view, we’re told that the atmosphere is second to none. You can see the whole track from ground level, trainers are supporting us all the time, and it’s onwards and upwards really.”
Part of that forward movement includes a major overhaul of part of the track itself. The back straight is to be extended to provide over six acres of additional ground that will add width and ease safety concerns.
From 2010 it will also mean the spectacular sight of chasers jumping against the backdrop of the Tourmakeady Mountains and galloping behind the old fairy fort at high speed.
“There was a feeling that it would be a major improvement for the racing industry, trainers and owners, and for the racecourse itself,“ says John Staunton. “Visually it will be very impressive. That’s our stage out there.”
We conclude our tour of the facilities back at the new water fountain that adds a touch of elegance to the enclosure. It is just one of the thousand little ways that Ballinrobe Racecourse has evolved during the past decade. Small steps that have made a huge difference.
“We expanded our committee to take in new members about ten years ago when we developed our grandstand,” offers John Staunton. “That really has given an added impetus to the whole thing. We have people involved now from both inside and outside the area and that’s created a bigger interest.
“The knock-on effect of that has been that they create extra business for the track in terms of sponsorship, and they bring in more race-goers as a result of their contacts. The people who come through the gate are our life’s blood, our bread and butter.”
And they won’t be disappointed.
