Naas plans to go ahead

RACING:  Plans to widen the track at Naas are to go ahead despite Horse Racing Ireland's decision not to fund an all-weather race track at this time.

Naas and Dundalk both had hopes of being chosen to be come Ireland's first all-weather race track, but now they must wait to see whether one of them eventually gets the nod.

"We are going ahead with our own plans of widening our track to be able to hold more racing fixtures," said Naas manager Margaret McGuinness yesterday.

"This is the place where everybody believes that, from a location point of view, an all-weather track should be built. It is going to be an expensive project.

"We would certainly need financial backing to build the track. We have had a meeting with the executive of the HRI and discussed the financing of the project and also we need to see if it would be a viable day-to-day proposition for a racecourse such as ours."

Dundalk's chief executive Jim Martin said: "My initial reaction is one of disappointment. We feel very strongly that we put the best proposal in the country to the HRI. We are prepared to work with the working group which will be set up to look at a surface capable of staging jump racing".

Dundalk opens for greyhound racing on November 29th and officials hoped to resume horse racing 12 months later. The track has been closed since 2001.