Rachael Blackmore chases first winner at Laytown’s historic beach fixture

Racing’s annual trip to the Laytown beach takes place on Tuesday where top jockey Rachael Blackmore has three chances to win on the strand for the very first time.

With a history going back over a century and a half, Laytown is the most famous beach meeting run anywhere in the world and the sole such fixture run in Ireland or Britain.

[ In pictures: Horses and jockeys hit the sands for the Laytown Races ]

The first of six races is off at 4.45pm after the tide has gone out far enough to allow officials to get a race-circuit in place.

Blackmore switches focus from the jumps game to try and fill in a rare gap on her groundbreaking CV. Laytown and the Curragh are the only tracks in Ireland that she has yet to ride a winner at.

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The woman, who has changed the face of the sport with pioneering victories in races such as the Grand National and Cheltenham Gold Cup, came close at Laytown in 2021 when runner-up on Approbare.

The first of her three spins on Tuesday is on Hell Left Loose who can already boast a win on the strand in 2021. He lines up in a six-furlong contest where last year’s winner Samrogue will try to win back-to-back off a favourable looking handicap mark.

The champion jump jockey Paul Townend is another famous face in action with a single ride in the opening contest.

There is a “coast to coast” feel to Tuesday evening’s Irish action with Laytown sharing focus with a Galway programme on the other side of the country.

The Listed Ardilaun Hotel Oyster Stakes is the feature in Ballybrit where a 12-strong field is split equally between three-year-olds and their seniors.

Willie Mullins’s Echoes In Rain is a proven course winner having landed the big amateur prize at the big summer festival last year.

There is a cross-channel raider in the Ralph Beckett-trained Thanks Monica while Aidan O’Brien is represented by High Chieftess.

A handful of the runners don first-time cheek-pieces, and the headgear could help Dermot Weld’s Azazat secure some valuable winning black-type.

Having reached the landmark tally of 4,000 career winners at the Curragh on Sunday, Aidan O’Brien is likely to fancy his chances of hitting 4,001 in the opening two-year-old maiden.