Last week's Roses festival looks like it will have been the last ever meeting run at the famous Tralee track after a dramatic vote by course directors to close the racecourse was revealed last night.
An extraordinary general meeting of the Ballybeggan Park Race Co Ltd in the Brandon Hotel on Thursday voted by four to one to sell the site for redevelopment to the property developers, Seamus O'Hanlon and John Casey.
A new state of the art leisure facility is being proposed for the track.
The directors last night stressed the difficulty of their decision to put a stop to a long racing history at Tralee but said it was not financially possible to carry on with a loss-making exercise.
Already, Ireland's racing authorities are looking ahead to the implications of the move for the fixture list next year.
"It's always hard for everyone when a course closes but this was fairly well signalled," said the Horse Racing Ireland chief executive, Brian Kavanagh, last night.
"The directors were always facing a difficult choice. What we will do now is look ahead to the implications for the fixture list next year which will have to be sorted out," added Kavanagh.
Tralee has faced serious financial pressures in recent years and only some last-minute moves in September of 2003 prevented a sale of the site.
The racecourse was established in 1898 on a former deer park owned by Daniel O'Connell but racing itself was recorded at a different site in Tralee in 1767.
Some famous names have won at Tralee, none more so than the Melbourne Cup winner Vintage Crop who won the Carling Gold Cup in 1992 for Dermot Weld and Michael Kinane.
Another legendary horse to win at Tralee is Dawn Run who landed the Havasnack Race while classic winners, Alexandrova (2005) and Vintage Tipple (2002) won their maidens at the Co Kerry course.
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