WHEN I set myself the challenge of visiting all 26 Irish racecourses on a raceday in 2017, I didn’t imagine that it would catch the imagination of so many people. The attention it garnered extended to Britain also. Someone, tongue in cheek, suggested that my next challenge would be to visit all the British tracks too, but I think I will settle for conquering the home turf.

Thurles on Thursday, October 12th will bring the curtain down on this particular challenge and I will be sorry to see it end. Fear not, I will be still be racing all the time, in case you thought I would be putting my feet up for the autumn and winter!

It all started on a bitterly cold New Year’s Day at Tramore where the sharp cold still failed to dampen the spirits of the huge crowd who turned up to watch the racing. A piping hot bowl of stew soon sorted that problem out and it was time to get on with the rest of the visits.

The sparsity of fixtures in the early months saw me visit five different tracks in January but no new one in February. The hospitable Downpatrick hosted a visit in March where I learned much about treating owners and winning connections well. April saw me visit five more tracks on the list, while May was the busiest month with seven new courses seen.

June and July provided two apiece, and I was especially gratified to get to the beautiful Sligo and celebrate with them their inaugural meeting of 2017. The crowd that turned up that day showed a great hunger for racing and a loyalty to the racecourse. Festivals at Galway and Listowel, both week long affairs, were interspersed with a long overdue return visit to the beach at Laytown.

Now all that remains is to visit Ireland’s only family owned racecourse in Thurles.

What have I learned from visiting all of these courses, spread over 17 counties and extending from the northernmost Down Royal to the most southerly in Waterford and Tramore, and from Listowel which is further west to Downpatrick which is the most easterly? There is probably one word that would sum them up most accurately and that is unique.

Different racegoers will interpret that word in various ways, and while every business and every racecourse can make improvements, Irish racecourses can be generally proud of their offering. The bigger venues have the larger budgets and consequently have made substantial investments. Smaller courses however can be proud of their facilities, geared in general towards a different clientele and market.

When I spoke with racecourse managers about the business of staging race meetings, one common theme seemed to be at or near the top of all of their agendas – customer service. This can range from five-star silver service at some courses, to that hearty stew I mentioned earlier or Roscommon’s mouth-watering hot beef roll. Horses for courses, as they say, and the main thing is that all make an effort.

I was regularly approached by racegoers to talk about my countrywide visits and I would have to say that 90% of their comments were positive and supportive. Yes, there are small improvements that certain tracks can make, but if I was marking all the tracks out of 10 they would mostly score well.

While some administrators will suggest that we should not measure the popularity of horseracing by attendance figures alone, it is a key goal of every single one of the 24 racecourse managers in Ireland that they build on the numbers attending. Hopefully this focus will be rewarded going forward.