Thurles needs to be saved

IN ALL FAIRNESS

When you think of sport and Tipperary, hurling is the first that comes to mind, the second is horse racing.

Outside of Kildare and Meath where you have racecourses and stud farms to beat the band, Tipperary is the second most fertile area for equine thoroughbreds, with numerous training operations, the highest profile of which is the world-famous Ballydoyle, just outside Rosegreen.

As well as that, Tipperary has the second largest number of racecourses in a single county, three in Clonmel, Tipperary, and until last week, Thurles.

To say the sudden closure of Thurles racecourse came as a bolt out of the blue last Friday morning would be something of an understatement. Racing on the track at Killinan on the Nenagh road has been taking place since 1732, the last 125 years or so of which has been run by the Molony family since the early 1900’s.

Thurles was the last remaining privately owned track in the country with the Molony family keeping the show on the road, particularly over the late decade since the passing of Pierce Molony. It was a pride and joy, a labour of love, but they have now decided the time is right to step away.

Their decision seems to have taken everyone by surprise; there wasn’t a whisper locally that this was in the offing. In her statement announcing the closure, Riona Moloney explained the “ever increasing industry demands and the cost of doing business” as being a major factor in their decision.

That is understandable and is why their ability to stay running it as a private enterprise for so long should be lauded as all the pressure was on them to ensure the track and facilities were up to scratch.

While it is a popular track in National Hunt racing, particularly its ability to race when others can’t in winter with its bottomless track; it did have its issues in the past year for different reasons, a number of meetings were forced to be rescheduled because the course was too firm to race on.

Some of the reasoning for the decision to close now could be as a result of the standards and licensing requirements set out in a new racecourse manual released in June by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) and Horse Racing Ireland (HRI), which outlines standards for tracks, including in relation to stabling, weighing room and medical facilities.

It has been suggested that the Thurles closure – Ireland’s first racecourse to close in seventeen years – may have been due to a multimillion-euro investment required to meet those standards. They reportedly include a minimum €300,000 for the installation of a watering system, according to the Irish Times.

The focus on watering intensified after jockey Michael O’Sullivan sustained fatal injuries in a fall at Thurles in February. A subsequent IHRB review concluded the crash was due to the “inherent risks of National Hunt” but urged the prioritisation of a watering system.

The Irish Jockeys Association (IJA) met Thurles racecourse officials, trainer representatives, and the IHRB since then with a view to try to provide ground conditions, ideally no faster than the easy side of good going into the future.

However, among those who queried whether Thurles required such a watering system is champion trainer Willie Mullins who saddled more than 250 winners at the track in his illustrious career, suggesting compliance with new IHRB and HRI guidelines is too expensive for smaller tracks, such as Thurles.

Thurles stages a number of high-profile races each year, including the Horse & Jockey Hotel Chase, formerly known as the Kinloch Brae. The Grade 2 contest has an illustrious roll of honour, having been won by the likes of Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Newmill, Cheltenham Gold Cup heroes Don Cossack and Sizing John, and the top-class Allaho, who won two Ryanair Chases, a John Durkan Memorial Chase and a Punchestown Gold Cup.

Thurles Racecourse is fully licenced to race until December 31st and has 11 fixtures in the 2025/26 calendar, the first of which for its new season is on October 9th so there is time to save Thurles and continue racing, with a short-term solution being Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) leasing the track to ensure racing remains.

In the longer term, you’d have to think the racing industry would want Thurles to remain active, particularly its ability to race in poor weather, plus with the number of local trainers, both big and small, it’s also a great venue for schooling with its centralised location.

Thurles has its detractors as a venue, largely because it doesn’t have corporate facilities which most other courses do, to attract a different type of racing follower. However, what made Thurles so special for many was because it was about just about the racing, one of the last tracks untouched by modernity. It will probably end up being saved in some shape or form, but beware turning it into just another track.