Racing fans out to watch a gallop by the scallops

FOR SOME, horse racing on the beach represents all that is best about Irish life.

When the Economist Intelligence Unit placed Ireland as the clear leader in its “quality of life” index for 111 countries in 2005, the news and international affairs magazine with a weekly circulation of one million copies showed children building sandcastles in the foreground, while the horses galloped past in the background.

Cork’s best known beach races take place next Sunday, July 22, at Courtmacsherry.

The main road through the coastal west Cork village becomes a grandstand, the village hall is the jockey club, a car park is the parade ground, and the estuary sandbank is marked out as a course for six races.

Horses and jockeys descend a slipway and cross a stream to the course. Six hours later, the course has disappeared under the returning tide.

The Courtmacsherry Horse and Pony Races started as a millennium project. It has become an integral part of Ireland’s horse racing scene, and some of the sport’s celebrities can be found mingling with locals and tourists who throng the venue.

Among them are likely to be some of our top jockeys who started their careers on the pony circuit at venues like Courtmac.

They range from international star JP Spencer to Paul Townend, who has graduated from champion pony rider to become one of Ireland’s most promising young jockeys.

Tommy Kinane, who rode Monksfield to win the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in 1978, will open the Courtmacsherry race meeting, and the horses will line up for the first race at 4.00pm.