WHO should be pictured in last weekend’s edition of The Irish Times business pages, above the caption “Last customers head home from Henry Street”, but sisters Jean and Angela Farrell. I was quite moved to see the current crisis represented by two individuals that I know, both of whom have possibly attended more race meetings than such seasoned ladies of the turf as Maureen Mullins, Valerie Cooper or Jessica Harrington. Indeed, the majority of racegoers will have met the two of them offering racecards on the way in, or peddling bags of fruit and a fistful of chocolate on the way out.

It begged the question, who are these ladies that are such a unique feature of Irish racing, many of them second generation in my lifetime? Rather like seagulls, they seem to appear from nowhere, then return into the city whence they came. They are known to so many of us yet are listed in no Turf directory, nor recognised by any of the many regulatory authorities.