BACK PAGES:The post-Christmas racing at Leopardstown is a time-honoured way of shedding some of the holiday's excesses, or perhaps of indulging new ones. This account from the Dublin racecourse, by an anonymous Pro-Quidnunc in An Irishman's Diary in 1974, reflected some of the major concerns of the times as well as the racing.
In the stand yesterday I met Noel Purcell and his lifelong and racing companion, Mr. Hector Grey, the Dublin businessman. Noel Purcell reckons he’s been going racing since he was 18 years old or so. “I used to love to go to the Grand National at Liverpool in the days when the race was on a Friday, and we’d travel down from the Lincoln, which was always the previous Wednesday. Those were great racing days. I’m not a gambler really. I’d never have more than a pound or two on a horse. But I love the sport. I just love horses in motion, on the flat or over the jumps.”
Noel’s only small complaint about the fine surroundings and facilities of Leopardstown was the sound: “They’ll have to do something about the sound. I don’t know whether it’s the microphones or the acoustics, but you can hardly hear the course commentary sometimes.” Was he doing any acting these days? “No. My days of climbing riggings, riding horses and chasing whales are over. I’d do something if anyone asked me or wanted me. But it would have to be something that didn’t involve much moving about. I read little Bible stories on television now, which means I only have to sit down and read.”
Meanwhile, his friend Hector Grey was in great humour, forecasting a boom year in 1975 and not at all despondent about the economic state of the nation. “I bet you 1975, all right it may not be the greatest ever, but it will be much better than people are letting on it’s going to be. Wait and you’ll see, we’ll all do much better next year than the experts are saying.”
He agreed that Christmas business had been good, very good. “We were way behind a month before Christmas, and then it all came with a rush and everyone did fairly well,” he said.
Certainly, if you were to look around the racecourse and the bars and dining rooms at Leopardstown yesterday you’d be forgiven for thinking that economic problems and gloomy forecasts, not to mention cris de coeur about the lack of money, were all the invention of Walt Disney or some such inventive genius.
Everywhere huge crowds pushed their way to bars and restaurants. And, suitably refreshed, pushed their way to bookmakers to spend their shillings and pounds, or to the tote machine windows to plunge their all on a cast-iron certainty which would run in the fifth. As for myself, I joined the Killanins for a celebration after their son, Michael Morris, rode a great race to win the second event on the card in a really thrilling finish. Lord Killanin and his wife, Sheila, were in happy mood after the success, a mood not at all dampened when Michael could only finish third on another mount later in the afternoon.
The day’s honours, as I’m sure you know by now, went to England, when Comedy of Errors pinched the Sweep, and there were many, many English voices in and around the parade ring to greet this win. Incidentally, I was told that a special lunch and party was given for the connections of English horses taking part in the races yesterday and that special facilities and a good welcome generally insured a fine turn-out from across the water. The air was heavy, too, with Northern voices, always a joy to hear . . .
The usual afficionados of the racing scene were present yesterday, and they were too numerous to list. One thing I couldn’t help spotting though: the number of Provisional Republicans, some not long out of various prisons in this State or another not a million miles away, who were there in fur coats, sheepskins, and with the racing binoculars casually draped around the neck. As a friend said when he passed one of them: “Isn’t it consoling to know that, even if they get to power, nothing will change?”
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