Inside Track: Horse and greyhound racing remains among the 15th August attractions

As calendar-watchers know, next Tuesday is August the 15th, a day on which, over the years, hundreds, maybe thousands, would make it to these parts, mainly from surrounding counties.

On the schedule for many would be a visit to Ladywell shrine on the Dublin Road, Callan’s Baths in Blackrock, horse racing at “The Mash” (the name given to race track at Dowdallshill when it was covered in grass) and, from 1968 onwards, greyhound racing at The Ramparts. A day, you could say, for saints and sinners.

Callan’s Baths, renowned for its health-giving seaweed water, has long been demolished; and there’s been no racing at The Ramparts since the turn into this century.

But the water continues to rise at Ladywell, and it’s still possible to have a bet at the ‘Hill – on the horses, and, since 2004, the longtails.

This is all by way of telling you that on Tuesday, the county’s foremost sporting venue, Dundalk Stadium, is staging another big programme of events. The most recent one was on July 12th, when the contest for the best-dressed lady was nearly as competitive as anything out on the horse or greyhound circuits.

This time the off-course emphasis in the afternoon will be on children attractions, while punters look for winners.

The latter will have seven or eight races to test their skills, the EBF Red God Premier Handicap being the one to give them most to ponder on.

Readers are not going to escape from what we have to say about the final of the Bar One Racing Irish Sprint Cup, the feature of the greyhound card later on in the evening. This is an Irish Classic, carrying a first prize of €20,000.

It’s sponsored by the Dundalk-headquartered Bar One Racing (headed by Barney O’Hare), which also underwrites the day’s other events on both tracks. It’s been like that for the last 14 years, and further back to the first running of the Bar One Sprint, in 2004, that O’Hare has considerably boosted the prizemoney.

And even before that, when it was run at The Ramparts, he gave his company’s name to the Dundalk International.

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It would be good if there was a local runner in the big race line-up; but with the Ardee-based David-Gerry-Danny Syndicate’s Crafty Bonanza failing to make the first three in the semi-finals, the chances of a repeat of Larry Dunne’s Jenkinstown-based Sycamore Dan’s feat in 2004, or the Carrick Jones brothers’ Heisman’s six years ago, went out the window.

While three of the finalists have yet to win a race in the stake – one of them his first race – it still has the makings of an exciting affair.

None of the sextet has an unbeaten record, but the first three in the betting have gone down just once in their four races.

The Swords-based Rathdown Molly is favourably drawn in three, alongside chief market rival Who Have I (4), and just outside this pair is Carrick Aldo, another looking for a fourth win in the competition. It will be a surprise if the winner doesn’t come from this group.

Rathdown Molly hasn’t got history on her side. In none of the 20 finals to date has a bitch claimed the laurels – but this lassie might be the one to put that record straight.

She comes from Des Gilbert’s kennel, which had the odds-on Aho Tony turned over in the 2009 decider. Compensation might come on Tuesday night.