The jockeys in the know say Dundalk's new polytrack is the best they have ridden on reports Brian O'Connor

On a rare sunny morning yesterday, Ireland's newest racecourse shimmered on the skyline like a miniature Del Mar, the archetypal Californian beach track near San Diego. Except this being Dundalk, the model is determinedly east coast, so think Belmont Park in New York.

"Belmont was what we told everyone the track layout would be based on," said one of the Dundalk directors, Colm McCourt, yesterday as the latest trial gallops took place on what is Ireland's first all-weather and floodlit racecourse ahead of its official opening at the end of the month.

"It looks well now, doesn't it?"

The question was purely rhetorical. There may be some twitchy nerves behind the scenes as the countdown to meeting number one has only 17 more days to go, but most of all there was only quiet satisfaction at the finishing touches being put to the €38 million project in front of the media yesterday.

First on to the track was the star sprinter Osterhase who performed a leisurely gallop around the polytrak surface and his jockey, Fran Berry, returned making all the right noises. "Lovely . . . rides great . . . the bends are very good . . . better than any of the all-weathers in England," said the top jockey, comments that were echoed by his colleague Willie Supple. "Perfect ground . . . fair to everyone . . . suits any horse."

Supple in particular is a regular around the prestigious Nad Al Sheba dirt course in Dubai and has also ridden around the four all-weather courses in Britain. "It's lovely out there. More of a galloping track than the others. Lingfield, for instance, has a hill down into the straight but this will be more favourable to everyone," he said.

Berry added: "The best of the all-weathers in England was Southwell but it had a terrible surface. This is much better and it rode well. There won't be too many going quicker than Osterhase and he handled the bends great. The long straight (over two furlongs of the 10-furlong circumference) will give everyone a chance. You'd run any horse here."

All of which was music to the ears of the Dundalk board of directors who for many years appeared to be singing solo on the subject of an all-weather course in this country. Persistence, it seems, has won out. "It's been an adventure. As they say in farming circles, it's been a calf born with great difficulty," smiled McCourt.

The blueprint for the new track, which opens on Sunday, August 26th and which will have its first floodlit meeting on September 27th, has been on the boil for the last 14 years and survived the closure of the old Dundalk track on the same site in 2001. "We were at the lowest level of racing's food-chain in those days but we always had faith in this project, even when there were problems and delays. Now, we're almost there," McCourt added.

Horse Racing Ireland, the sport's ruling body here, spent quite some time shuffling its feet before deciding to engage in this waltz with the all-weather but has granted 12 fixtures before the end of this year and 25 in 2008. Now the public will give the ultimate verdict with their feet and the first meeting is already sold out.

The commercial model is very much along the greyhound racing lines that already operate successfully here. Up to 400 people can be fitted into the corporate sector in the stands and the track itself has been placed deliberately right under the stand to increase the atmosphere for a clientele which is expected to reach far beyond racing's hard core. At least 30 per cent of racegoers are expected to come from across the border.

Within the sport, the new development has become a fulcrum for a debate about the overall levels of racing in this country and the problem of over-production of horses. But from a purely racing point of view, Dundalk appears to be ready for the off.

"It has been quite an engineering feat getting the track done," explained McCourt. "At one point of the old course, we had to raise the whole thing up by 12 feet. There was 3,000 tonnes of stone coming in here every day for three months.

"The drainage system is amazing too, and it works. If it can survive the last few weeks, it can survive anything!"

The fundamental element of the whole project, the all-weather surface, is polytrack, an artificial surface made up of sand, bits of rubber, fibres and wax that is increasingly being used throughout the world.

Even in America, the home of dirt racing, five tracks have torn up their old surfaces and installed polytrack which has the reputation of being less punishing on horses' limbs. One of the five is Del Mar. So, Dundalk might have another besides Belmont if it ever decides to twin.