FEW special events in south east Dublin could compare with the recent visit of the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, which drew 100,000 people to the streets of Dun Laoghaire on July 4th.
Sunday racing at Leopardstown is a doddle by comparison, but it is one of the many special events in the DMA East area in which the gardai are intimately involved.
Each racing day begins with a sweep of the course by the Garda dog unit which, especially in the light of recent events, is designed to ensure there are no suspect packages in the grounds.
Once the crowd is in, the problems are standard - traffic is always a headache, there are pickpockets to contend with and there is always the matter of the large amount of cash flowing freely around the course. But there are a few special difficulties for the team of a dozen or so gardai drawn from nearby Cabinteely station.
The straight sprint course at Leopardstown begins in a remote corner at the Ballyogan end of the course and abuts a housing estate from which children have been known to throw stones and other missiles at the horses. So on racing day, at least one Garda must be stationed there during the five and six furlong races.
That's not the only problem at that end of the track. Within minutes of their arrival yesterday, the manager of the course was already hectoring gardai to "do something" about a traveller encampment which obstructs the Ballyogan Road entrance to the course.
The narrow road has become a near permanent home to several traveller families from the southeast. They have halved the width of the entrance and, occasionally, block it altogether.
Neither gardai nor racecourse management are happy with the presence of the encampment but the road is not officially a public one because of an anomaly in the law. So the families cannot be legally moved - leaving aside any other rights they may have.
Inside the track yesterday, apart from the activities of a ticket tout, there were few worries, with the gardai and the course's own security people working in unison. In fact, the most dramatic on course offence was when four very drunk English medical students removed all their clothes and invaded the parade ring.
Clearly, no great harm was being done but, since a sense of humour is not something that everybody values in a law enforcement agency, the gardai arrested them. To the relief of everybody involved, they got the Probation Act and an early return to Britain.