Future of Tralee back on the table

THE FUTURE of Tralee racecourse appears to be firmly back on the table after Kerry County Council's refusal to grant full planning permission for a new development on the site.

This week's five-day festival had been widely presumed to be the swansong for the Co Kerry track but rumours of Tralee's demise are proving to be exaggerated and already there have been calls for racing to continue there next year.

Horse Racing Ireland allocated no fixtures to Tralee for 2009 on the back of last year's decision by the shareholders of the Ballybeggan Park Race Company to accept a €48 million offer from a property consortium led by developers John Casey and Séamus O'Halloran to build on the 114-acre site.

A non-refundable €1 million deposit was handed over but the bulk of the money was payable on condition of full planning permission for 300 houses, a retail park, a business park as well as a new GAA pitch and a town park.

However, the cat has been thrown among the pigeons by Kerry County Council's decision to grant permission for the pitch and the park but not the rest of the proposal.

"We are very optimistic about the future of the racecourse as a racecourse. We will go to An Bord Pleannála if we have to but we're 90 per cent there. It's a fantastic decision for the people of Tralee and of Kerry," said Eddie Barrett, chairman of the Save Tralee Racecourse Committe, yesterday.

The racecourse chairman, Paddy Barry, said he would have to read the full text of Kerry County Council's decision, and consult with the development consortium, before deciding on a course of action. He also said that any decision regarding fixtures for 2009 is a matter for racing's ruling body, Horse Racing Ireland.

The fixtures programme for next year which HRI published last month saw a dispersal of five of Tralee's seven old dates with the nearby Killarney track now set to stage a new four-day festival in August. However, the door does not appear to be completely closed on a possible new reshuffle.

HRI's chief executive Brian Kavanagh said yesterday the immediate focus would be on getting Tralee to complete its current festival which has been bedevilled with waterlogging problems due to the current bad weather.

However, he added: "As it is with all racecourses, it is a matter for the shareholders to decide what they want to do. It would be wrong to comment until we hear from the race company in Tralee."

But those who want racing's 250-year tradition in Tralee to continue are adamant that racing is still possible in 2009. "We want the race company to re-register with HRI as soon as possible and to fulfil its duties as a race company. If they go about things in the right way they will get fixtures. No one in Killarney is going to resent Tralee in such circumstances," Eddie Barrett said.

"One of the arguments the race company had for selling was their debts but this leaves the company a million euro richer as it is. All their debts have been wiped out and they have the chance to continue a historical tradition," he added.

Racing began at the current site in 1898 on a former deer park owned by Daniel O'Connell. The then holding company was forced into liquidation in the 1930s but racing was revived in 1946.

Declining attendances have cast a shadow over racing at Tralee for the last decade but in that time it has hosted winning performances by some top-class horses including the 2006 Epsom Oaks winner Alexandrova and the 2002 Irish Oaks heroine Vintage Tipple. Melbourne Cup winner Vintage Crop also won at Tralee in 1992.

In April of this year, Tralee Town Council gave planning permission for a €200 million development at the historic Austin Stakes GAA park. Ballybeggan Park is the proposed site for the GAA club's new grounds.