THE Hurling for Cancer Research match combines two of Ireland’s intrinsic passions – gaelic games and the horse.

In every rural parish in particular, you will find football, hurling, camogie or ladies football, and you will see a horse in a field. Being a supporter of one or the other or both has never been a conscious decision for many. It just was.

If you were born in the country, chances were you had a mini hurley thrust in your hands while still in the pram, kicked a ball as soon as you could stand without keeling over, were placed up on a pony for a photo even before that.

Colm O’Rourke doesn’t recall life without either so it’s appropriate that he is lending his support to the charity hurling match, the sixth version of which takes place in its spiritual home of St Conleth’s Park in Newbridge on Tuesday, August 15th.

The brainchild of Jim Bolger and Davy Russell, it has raised in excess of €500,000 to date. Every year, the glitterati of racing and gaelic games participate, combining roles from playing to management to umpiring.

Brian Cody has been a regular, even as Kilkenny might be preparing for All-Ireland finals, and will be back as manager of one of the teams again. O’Rourke has always offered his support but will be confined to an off-field role, having made his name with a big ball rather than a small one.

FOOTBALL LEGEND

He is of course, a football legend in Meath, having played 20 years at senior level. Teak tough and a brilliant finisher, he was already approaching veteran status, with a very gammy knee, when he scored a match-turning goal to win the first of his two All-Irelands in 1987.

Yet he was still at the peak of his powers four years later when named Footballer of the Year despite Meath losing out to Down in the All-Ireland final. He also earned the last of his three All-Stars that season.

After his retirement, O’Rourke moved naturally into punditry on TV and in print, while he managed the Irish international rules squad to two series wins over Australia in 1998 and 1999. He has also been hugely successful as manager of football teams at St Patrick’s Classical School in Navan, where he was educated himself and is now principal.

He has steered St Pat’s to three All-Irelands and 10 Leinster Championships during his time there. Last year, he was the boss as Simonstown Gaels won their first county senior football championship.

He was always too big to be a jockey but racing surrounded him. It was at home and then as now, it was all around Meath. Over the years, he has developed friendships with the likes of Bolger and Noel Meade and it was the former who got him involved in Hurling for Cancer Research.

O’Rourke showed as a player that he was no shrinking violet and continues to do the same as a pundit, but when a force of nature looks you square in the eyes and tells you your presence is required, you don’t question. But of course, he is delighted to help and promote such an important cause in any way he can.

“It’s a wonderful thing the way Jim has gotten involved in it and raised over half a million at this stage,” says O’Rourke. “It’s a great credit to all the people involved. My part in it is fairly minor.

“There is great fun in it and there’s nobody who’s not happy to be involved.”

TOTAL ADMIRATION

O’Rourke’s admiration for Bolger is total.

“When he takes on something he’d always do it right and he’d expect everybody else to get involved and pull their weight. When you’re with him, there’s no such thing as anything other than 100%. It’s not a bad way and everybody knows when they’re getting involved that that’s what they’re getting involved in. “I know him through the football and hurling going back for a long, long time. We’ve been friendly for half a lifetime I suppose. We get on well. We meet up regularly.

“He’s probably one of a few that has been able to do it all in racing from owning, breeding and training. There’s very few given to do that - especially to do it independently without having come from a racing background. To do it from scratch has been quite a remarkable achievement and I don’t think anyone else will be able to do that again.

“I’ve been involved off and on with horses for a long, long time. I’d be involved with Jim for 25 years. It goes back for as long as I can ever remember. In our house, horses were a big part of it. Football and horses in Meath are closely interlinked anyway.

“The horse is a big industry in this county – the racing, show jumping, studs, eventing, pony clubs, show horses; all of that sort of stuff. It’s a big, big industry. You have every aspect of the horse represented in this county.”

PASSION FOR HORSES

He has owned or had a share in numerous horses over the years of varying quality, starting off early on with Michael Cunningham. National Hunt racing had been his traditional preference and, with Meade a keen GAA supporter at club and county level, he gravitated towards Tu Va.

Once he got to know Bolger however, O’Rourke’s enjoyment of the flat game increased. Of all the racehorses he had something to do with, the best was Ballykett Nancy, owned in partnership with the late Noel Keating.

They were great friends as Keating was the founder of and MD of Kepak, who poured money into Meath GAA for many years. Under the stewardship of the Master of Coolcullen, Ballykett Nancy won eight races, six of them listed.

O’Rourke has nothing at the moment but is optimistic that the situation will be addressed.

“It is more difficult now but, apart from being involved with Jim, I’ve been involved with plenty different ones with Noel Meade as well, so I’ll hopefully get back involved with something in the flat and something in the jumps soon.”

His earliest memories revolve around Cheltenham. He always felt that L’Escargot was a seriously underrated horse, a dual Gold Cup winner that won an Aintree Grand National, having previously finished second and third.

The Bolger connection influences his more recent highlights however.

“I remember L’Escargot winning the Gold Cup but in more recent times Teofilo winning the Dewhurst – I was there that day. Maybe New Approach winning the Derby at Epsom – I was lucky enough to be there that day as well – and Trading Leather winning the Irish Derby. Bred by Jim, owned by (Jim’s wife) Jackie, trained by Jim and ridden by his son-in-law (Kevin Manning); that was probably a unique achievement in Irish racing.”

He likes to have a “small wager” and certainly, the winnings collected afterwards added to the enjoyment of Teofilo’s head defeat of Holy Roman Emperor at Newmarket 11 years ago.

GAMBLING IS A WORRY

Given his professional role overseeing the education and welfare of 900 students, and his involvement in dressing rooms at a variety of levels however, O’Rourke has witnessed the rapid growth of gambling among young people with concern, however.

The ease of accessibility is a worry and he believes that steps should be taken to curb the potentially dangerous influence of betting on young people and to prevent them from having online betting accounts.

“The online betting is huge with young people, there’s no doubt about that. The incentive should be to get people to go racing rather than betting online and they should make it more difficult for people to bet online. There has to be controls of online betting.

“There should be no way that people under 18 should be able to have accounts – or even under 21 I would say it should be put to. Banks too have an obligation to ensure that if there’s money being spent from accounts for online gambling to do something about it.”

He goes racing at least once a week but sees the numbers dwindling, an impression that was confirmed once more in the latest six-month figures released by Horse Racing Ireland. The reduction of 3.8% in attendances is a worry and HRI have appointed another Meathman with a gaelic games background to address it.

IMPROVING ATTENDANCE

Paul Dermody is a former commercial and sponsorship manager with the GAA, who has been made commercial and marketing director with particular responsibility for developing attendances at race meetings, joining from a similar position with Leinster Rugby.

O’Rourke has a couple of suggestions for his fellow Royal.

“I think Irish people have a natural empathy towards the animal. We seem to have a close relationship. I suppose it was there going back generations. We were all associated with agriculture and animals and that still holds true. The Irish man and woman seem to be able to better deal with horses than anybody else in the world. They seem to understand them and have a love and passion for them.

“I don’t know how to cultivate it with young people. I was in Leopardstown and the concerts after racing are a huge attraction. There was a really good crowd there and a good buzz about the place. Racecourses in general are going to have to use their own initiatives to try and get people, particularly young people.They can do it with the fashion and things like that and of course Galway is a complete young person’s paradise. I often wonder should they attract people in by letting them in for nothing, to get people in there and try make money with the Tote.

“Especially at the off-peak meetings. I don’t mind at the Derby and big meetings charging in. But an awful lot of them, it’s a disincentive to go in. I know people say you have to pay to go into every sporting event and why should racing be any different but I suppose the biggest thing with racing is that the expectation is you will spend a lot when you get in, whereas at other sporting events, you don’t have to spend anything.”

A huge emphasis has been placed on hospitality now at many of the tracks, with significant investment going into bars and restaurants. Allied with the various betting opportunities, getting in through the turnstiles is only the start of the spending.

“Maybe if they could give you a fiver or tenner free bet. Get people in the gate. If they go in a couple of times, have a good experience, maybe they’ll keep going.”

This is the nub of the discussion. It applies to attendances and even more so, to owners, the lifeblood of the entire industry. The day must stand out. Getting to the track is a feat in itself as an owner. Winning is a dream so an owner should be made feel special and enjoy the experience.

“It’s about taking care of the owner on the day and encouraging people to get in at a low cost. That has to be the future of it. And then that it’s a great day out for the people going to the races that are involved.

“You have to compete with so much. There will be huge crowds at the football and hurling over the next few weeks. If racing is going to get its share of those, they’re going to have to work hard for it.”

Which brings us to a point O’Rourke has made often over the years. The major events in Irish racing were originally switched to Sundays to avoid clashing with their counterparts in the UK but that has put them into competition with their most natural bedfellows, the GAA.

“There’s no doubt about it. I’ve been saying that for a long time. The Leinster Final had Dublin and Kildare in it. There were 66,000 in Croke Park. There was racing in the Curragh on the same day and I think there were 2,000 at it.

“If the Curragh were able to put up their crowds – I know there’s a limit now – but if you were able to get 10,000 of a crowd at a meeting, or 5,000, it would be a huge crowd for racing. It’s negligible for a football match but it should be possible to put crowds back up to something like those levels.

“So I would certainly like to see the big races taken away from Sundays, especially in the summer when they’re competing against an awful lot of other big attractions. If you look on Sundays all over the summer, you have big golf on television a lot of the time, you have Gaelic games on, you have tennis… you have all these other big sporting events. I don’t think the racing should be taking them on.”