POV: Train To Nowhere (Johnny Ward)

In our daily POV column – Johnny Ward from Racing TV and Irishracing.com on ‘the lack of interest in Ireland’s only modern racetrack’….

I remember my first trip to the Curragh well, mainly because I missed the train (station).

In college, out of boredom, I started to pop into a dingy betting shop 100 metres or so from the equally dingy place I rented for a nominal fee off a landlord we neither saw nor heard from. The first Cheltenham I watched was the 2003 renewal and, hooked, I decided I’d go to the Curragh on my own for the Flat seasonal opener a couple of weeks later.

My father, who has never let me down, must have brought me to Ballinasloe train station and I had a simple plan: get off at the Curragh halt. For some reason, the train never stopped, and I had to disembark in Dublin and get the next train to Kildare, thus missing an obvious winner in the opening maiden, which in those days Aidan O’Brien always won.

I now believe the reason the train did not stop was that the Curragh station was already closed by then. The racecourse was once served by two railway stations: Curragh Mainline on the main Dublin–Cork line, which opened in 1846, and Curragh Racecourse at the end of a short branch to the grandstand, which opened in 1875. The Curragh Racecourse station closed in 1977 and the branch was subsequently lifted, while Curragh Mainline fell into disuse in the early 2000s, perhaps before my Curragh debut.

I have a weird fascination with many obscure things and one of them is fallen railway stations. The Curragh is one I would love to see return.

A spokeswoman for Irish Rail told me back in 2019: “Under the National Development investment programme on railways, we would not be in a position to finance (the station returning), but if there were third-party interest in an investment, in terms of upgrading the facility, we would be willing to talk to them about it.”

Horse Racing Ireland’s then CEO Brian Kavanagh said at the time: “I think it should get strong consideration as part of a next phase of the Curragh redevelopment,” he said. “Obviously it would involve discussions with Iarnrod Eireann as the Curragh station has been unused for many years and would undoubtedly require remedial works. That said, there would be benefits on non-racedays with the potential for a Park and Ride facility for the many Kildare-based commuters to Dublin every day.”

Kavanagh since took over at the Curragh and told me lately that they had not given up on the idea of the Curragh station returning, but I remember being quoted what seemed an astronomical figure of €2 million in 2019; with inflation that could be double that now or even more.

The Curragh is beside a railway line that serves Dublin, Galway, Cork, Kerry and Waterford. In an unexpected bit of good news, trains have become really popular in Ireland since I spoke to Irish Rail in 2019, and having a station to serve the Curragh makes more sense than ever.

All of this came into my head today when I was asked to write a piece here. As much as the Curragh’s redevelopment has often been called a white elephant, the one plus is that it was built before inflation really set in. The main positive of the renovation was the renovation happening at all. If it were suggested now, no doubt it would cost at least double what it did. It would not be built.

The crowd figures for the Guineas weekend (Friday 2,837, Saturday 5,777 and Sunday 5,167) are absolutely dire. When you consider they would include jockeys, trainers and any number of people not paying in, a racecourse that, in my humble opinion, is the only truly modern one in the country, simply cannot attract people to go there.

Irish people are said to love horses but most cannot be arsed paying to see them run on the Flat, unless it is a piss-up on the beach at Laytown. If the Curragh had every incentive known to man, they would still struggle to get people in. But Kavanagh and his team surely need to start marketing more aggressively, and actively targeting businesses and sports clubs to have days out at the Curragh on designated afternoons.

The train station would be a massive help, but saving that, something needs to be done. Admittedly I do not go as often as I should but I always enjoy the Curragh and it saddens me that a top-class facility, with the most beautiful horses you could wish to see in action, is visited by so few.

The betting ring has become moribund most of the time, though that is not unlike Leopardstown for a Flat meeting, and that is another track that has really lost its way in terms of attracting fans in the summer. (On Leopardstown, how can you attract a post-work crowd to a meeting as Thursday’s did starting at 4.20?) None of this is healthy for the sport. If you go racing with the tumbleweed alone, it is no incentive to make you return, and big days should not feel like that.

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