RACING: Next year's Listowel Festival looks set to go ahead as planned on its current dates after the track manager ruled out an appeal to Horse Racing Ireland (HRI).
The Listowel executive had approached the fixtures committee of HRI to move the famous festival forward a week because of a clash with a golf tournament at Ballybunion.
The Minister for Sport, John O'Donoghue, had been asked to assist but the Listowel authorities won't now appeal the dates at Monday's HRI board meeting.
"We have consulted various people and the feedback has not been good. It's unfortunate but it's also extraordinary that all these events are happening at the same time," said manager Brendan Daly.
Earlier in the year, the HRI's fixtures committee had agreed to move the festival back to September 15th-21st from its original planned dates, September 22nd-28th.
That was due to a clash with the national ploughing championships and the All-Ireland football final at Croke Park.
Last month, an approach was made to switch back again, because of the golf tournament, but the request was turned down by the fixtures committee.
"They looked at the pros and cons and decided against it. A change would impact on several other courses," said the HRI chief executive, Brian Kavanagh, yesterday.
The HRI director of racing, Jason Morris, added: "The fixture list was approved at Galway in early August and Listowel asked us to reconsider three months later."
