Even without crowds Limerick Racecourse has plenty to shout about
Racing behind closed doors at Limerick Racecourse in March. Despite the lack of crowds, general manager Patrick O’Callaghan remains upbeat given the quality of fare on offer throughout the four-day Christmas Festival. Picture: Healy Racing
It will be a very different Limerick Racecourse on this St Stephen’s Day to the bubbling current of raw emotion when Faugheen left his mark in 2019.
'The Machine' made such an impression that the track’s Grade 1 Matchbook Betting Exchange Faugheen Novice Chase has been named in his honour.
Thanks to Covid-19, his successor on the roll of honour will prevail in almost total silence, in stark contrast to the raucous ovation accorded to the son of Germany last year but general manager Patrick O’Callaghan remains upbeat given the quality of fare on offer throughout the four-day Christmas Festival.
It is hard to be negative about a venue and programme that provided such joy 12 months ago.
“You could sense the buzz leading into it,” recalls O’Callaghan. “You could feel the atmosphere. The place was heaving. Then they kicked off and as they jumped the last off the back straight and came around the top bend together – I was at the top of the stand and the electricity went through you.
“He came into the parade ring and I’d say there were easily eight or ten deep trying to look in. That’s no exaggeration. I could be in Limerick Racecourse as manager for the next 20 years and it will be very hard to beat that.”
Saturday’s renewal will be the third season of the two-and-a-half-mile novice chase as a Grade 1 and that it is providing a previously unavailable option at that trip has added to its popularity.
This is evidenced by the elite names standing their ground ahead of final declarations, including unbeaten superstar Envoi Allen, Albert Bartlett Hurdle winner Monkfish and another Grade 1-winning novice hurdler, Asterion Forlonge.
But O’Callaghan and his team isn’t stopping there.
“It was a very good Grade 2 for a long number of years. The form has always stacked up which is why it was promoted to Grade 1 status and it did again last year, with Samcro winning at Cheltenham and Faugheen very close behind him in third.
“We are continuing to try to build the status of the track and the Christmas Festival.
"I make no secret of it but our aim is that we would have a Grade 1 or Grade A on each of our days at Christmas.
“We have the Doran’s Pride over two miles seven on the second day of Christmas, which Faugheen won in his novice hurdling days, and we’d be hoping we might get that up to Grade 1 status as well. We have the Grade 2 Sporting Limerick Hurdle on the last day for four-year-olds only over two miles. That has been newly upgraded.
"It was won the year before last by Espoir D’Allen, who went on to win the Champion Hurdle. You have to earn your status and it will have to be three years as a Grade 2 before being considered for promotion – or relegation. We’d be hoping it’s a promotion. Then we have the Tim Duggan, a Grade B handicap chase. We moved that to avoid a clash with the Paddy Power in Leopardstown. So again, it gave trainers an option if they didn’t get in or things didn’t go according to plan.
It says much for O’Callaghan and his staff, that Limerick is now prominent at the helm as a lead vessel.
