Racing uncertainty: Are our small tracks rounding the final turn?

They battled to keep the likes of Clonmel racing, but the hurdles keep mounting for those whose fix is a day at the local races. Maurice Brosnan spent a day racing to see the passion first hand.

OVER THE LAST: Ballinaboola Jet and Richie Deegan win the William Hill Each Way Extra Challenge Series Handicap Hurdle at Clonmel.

These are the holdouts. The committed. The select few huddled beneath Slievenamon on a bracing day’s racing in Clonmel.

Powerstown Park is picturesque and low-key. This week, a scattered gathering come for an eight-race card at one of Ireland’s most long-running provincial tracks. When Mick Casey first started to make the trip up the road from Tramore, there would be a queue of cars along the way. Previously, if he arrived and saw a crowd like this one, he would have presumed racing had been cancelled.