Inside Track: Dundalk will have to fight its corner when new all-weather track opens next year

The horses are up and running in Dundalk Stadium. Second meeting of the new season was staged on Friday night, and there’ll be a further 20 before the year is out.

Activity will resume early in January and continue until April. In all there’ll be in the region of 40 meetings.

Each passing year since the track opened in 2007 has seen an increase in the number of meetings. It’s the country’s first all-weather track, and judged by the huge number of runners each meeting has attracted, it’s quite obviously popular with owners and, in particular, trainers.

Runners have come from all over the country and the one next to it. On Friday night, Classic-winning trainer, Charlie Appleby, sent over the winner of the feature event from his Newmarket stable. Another English trainer, Sir Mark Prescott, also had a runner.

It was Appleby’s first runner at the track since 2014; in the meantime other top handlers from across the water, the retired Mark Johnston among them, have been represented.

And it’s been a happy hunting ground for Aidan O’Brien, the country’s leading trainer over the past two decades, who, like Appleby, had a winner on Friday night.

The Master of Ballydoyle has run some of his fastest at the track, as well as giving a training spin to lots of contenders for these islands’ big races and the Breeders’ Cup races in America.

For the record, champion jockey-elect, Billy Lee, rode a treble on Friday night, while the seven-race meeting was bookended by 40/1 winners.

Trainers’ support for Dundalk is testimony to the racing surface’s condition. As the only one of its kind in the country, the track and has an attraction all of its own.

It offers trainers the opportunity to run horses over the winter and spring months that might otherwise have to be put away. However, if there were any safety concerns, handlers wouldn’t be keen to compete.

Is there a need for another all-weather track in Ireland? The authorities think there is. Last year Horse Racing Ireland took the decision to build a similar facility at Tipperary, a track it owns.

Work has been ongoing, and in late October of next year the first meeting will be held. Nine fixtures have been earmarked for 2027.

The question is: Will this impact on Dundalk? Quite a number of runners at the Dowdalshill circuit have come from, let’s say, the bottom half of the country, many representing Tipperary, Waterford and Cork stables.

If, for instance, each track has a weekly meeting – and it’s almost certain that will be the case – can Dundalk expect the same patronage from southern-based trainers?

Dundalk has faced many challenges since it opened – and, indeed, before it opened. It wasn’t the authorities preferred location when a venue for country’s first all-weather track had still to be decided.

But its team fought tooth and nail, and with a local businessman and politician in its corner, was successful with its application for a licence The first meeting on Sunday, August 23rd, 19 years ago, attracted a capacity crowd.

Owners and trainers will choose where they want to run their horses when both tracks are operating simultaneously. There’ll be competition for runners, and that’s fair enough.

However, Dundalk will be hoping the HRI keep the playing field as level as it should be. The decision to reduce Dundalk’s 2027 November and December allocation of fixtures by two, and including them in the Tipperary nine, is not the best of starts.