The GAA, officially that is, has an aversion to horse and greyhound racing and it has a rule that copperfastens that attitude. Not many people know that. Yet Rule 42(b) of Treori Oifigiul - the rule book of the GAA - states: "Grounds controlled by association units shall not be used or permitted to be used for horse racing, greyhound racing or field games other than those sanctioned by Central Council".
This rule frequently crops up in the context of controversy surrounding debates about the use of Croke Park for rugby and soccer, but the racing connection is ignored. The fact is, of course, that the rule is part of the historical baggage which the modern GAA has inherited and, like the rule about the RUC and British forces, has little or no real effect on the life of the GAA.
Far from it. There are strong links between the racing fraternity and Gaelic games and these links are never more obvious than when Meath and Kildare come face to face, as they will for a third time in the space of a few weeks in Croke Park tomorrow.
It is interesting also to note that when Kilkenny teams run out on to the pitch, wearing their distinctive black and amber vertical stripes, they bear the racing colours of a generous horse-owning patron who presented them with a set of jerseys in his racing colours for their first All-Ireland final appearance in 1893. To bring matters more up to date, when a horse called Saving Bond (Tom Gibney up) carried the Meath county colours first past the post in Galway last Monday night, the trainer, Noel Meade, said: "And we'll beat Kildare on Sunday to complete the double."
If his prediction comes true it will be at the expense of a number of other racing men involved in Sunday's effort. The Kildare midfielder, Willie McCreery is one of that number. The McCreery clan is steeped in the racing game. Willie's late father, Peter, was a well-known successful trainer and his brother, also named Peter, is carrying on the tradition. His most notable achievement to date was the saddling of Son Of War to win the Irish Grand National in 1994.
Willie McCreery is also deeply involved in racing and is currently assistant manager to Charles O'Brien in the Curragh. He was a useful jockey as a youngster, before his height and weight became prohibitive. Commenting about combining his duties in the O'Brien stable with football, he says: "Charles (O'Brien) is very understanding as far as my commitment to the team and the training schedule is concerned. Mind you he would be more interested in the performances of the Tipperary hurlers than the Kildare footballers. But he still takes an interest, just like practically everybody else who has anything to do with Kildare.
"The Galway festival didn't have any direct effect on my availability for training as we don't have horses involved at present," he says. On Tuesday night, with the rest of the squad and under the direction of John Crofton, Mick O'Dwyer and the former Kerry and Kildare player Pat McCormack, he showed that he has made a full recovery from the leg injury which forced him to leave the field during extra-time in the second drawn match. He picked up the injury when scoring a crucial second goal for Kildare in the first period of extra-time.
He believes that the two matches against Meath, plus the extra-time, has brought the Kildare team much further on than would otherwise be the case.
"We were unlucky not to win. We were in control for long periods in both games, but Meath are never beaten until the final whistle. If we can eliminate the mistakes that we have made, then I am confident that we can win," he says.
He concedes the fact that Meath will also have benefited from the experience, but believes that Kildare's improvement will outweigh that. "We are now tuned in to Croke Park and the atmosphere created by huge crowds. I think we will have gained more than Meath because they have been familiar with that situation for a number of years now. We have learned a lot and, with a strong team available, we are better than we were at the beginning. Glen Ryan is back to full fitness and that is very important. He will have benefited greatly from the two extra weeks," he says. Other Kildare players involved in racing are goalkeeper Christy Byrne and Eddie McCormack. Both work on stud farms in the district. Byrne, the goalkeeper who saved a crucial penalty in the second drawn match, has played for the Irish soccer team at youth level. Mick O'Dwyer believes he is the best goalkeeper in the country at present.
"With a little bit of luck he might have saved the other penalty as well. I'm delighted that we have done so well this year for his sake. He was under a lot of pressure to play soccer but we managed to hold on to him," says O'Dwyer. Another man steeped in racing and, in spite of a very heavy racing schedule, very much involved with Kildare football is Michael Osborne. He played football as a student with Naas CBS and Ballyfin College in Laois and later club football with Eadestown, the club for which Larry Tompkins played. He prefers not to think about how long ago that was. His family was always very much involved with horses, his uncle Joe having trained many top-class horses, including Silver Fame, which won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1951, and Brown Lad, who finished second twice and also won the Irish Grand National.
A qualified vet, Osborne is currently chief executive of Kildangan Stud which is owned by Sheikh Mohammed. He is also chairman of Emirates Racing Association in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the company which runs the world's richest race, the Dubai World Cup.
He was in Dubai last Sunday week when Kildare played Meath in the replay and listened in to the Carlow Kilkenny Radio (CKR) commentary on the extra-time by way of a mobile telephone link between Kildangan and Dubai in 115 degrees of heat. "I was shattered after that. It was probably more tense than if I had actually been at the match. People over there couldn't understand why I was so excited," he says.
He recalls that when Kildare were beaten by Wicklow in the Leinster championship in 1990 some concerned people got together and the Kildare Supporters' Club was born with Osborne as chairman. Jack Wall, recently elected to Dail Eireann, took over as chairman of the county board about the same time.
"What we in the supporters' club did was to take some of the financial burden away from the county board by agreeing to underwrite the senior county team's costs. We all pulled together in that effort and we have made progress and we are still in the championship this year and we are now into August," he says. The club was, in the main, responsible for recruiting Mick O'Dwyer as manager in February of 1991. "It was Gus Fitzgerald's idea to approach Mick O'Dwyer and we were delighted when he accepted. He has a very big effect on the players who admire and respect him greatly. The morale in the side is enormous and we have several very dedicated people in the back-up squad," says Osborne. O'Dwyer is now in his second term as manager.
It is 41 years since Kildare won the Leinster championship and Osborne feels that the tide is about to turn. No member of the present squad was born when Kildare beat Wexford by 2-11 to 1-8 in 1956. Many in Kildare have noted with satisfaction the exploits of the footballers and hurlers in Clare, the hurlers in Wexford and the footballers in Leitrim and Cavan who have made strides after long absences from the winners' rostrum. What these have done Kildare can do seems to be the present Kildare motto.
Osborne would dearly love to break the run of disappointment since 1956. Six Leinster finals have been lost - 1966 and '69 to Meath, '71 and '72 to Offaly and '75 and '78 to Dublin. He believes that the setting up of the supporters' club has enabled the county board to concentrate on other important matters, such as good coaching structures, and that these efforts are now beginning to bear fruit. The club has also been instrumental in putting into place arrangements for looking after members of the senior panel in a more efficient and professional way. "I am proud to say that the players of all ages have responded and not one player has ever let us down. We have been able to find jobs for people and so on and things are much better and morale is high. A Leinster Championship would do wonders for the county," he feels. The development of a new training ground at Hawksfield has made a huge difference to training schedules and the self-esteem of the team. There is a new pride in wearing the Kildare jersey.
"Going to play Limerick in the third division, at Askeaton in November, before a crowd of 100 people wasn't doing the morale of the team any good. We have made steady progress and everybody is pulling together," he says. This view of the situation is endorsed by O'Dwyer. "There is great spirit here and the players are giving it a total commitment. The matches against Meath have been tough, but we know now that we can win. A couple of things went wrong last time, but we know that we can do it. Everybody has worked very hard and that is what it takes to win at this level. "We have been unlucky with injuries. We lost two full backs (John Finn and Ronan Quinn) to injury and Johnny McDonald has dropped out through injury as well, but we have managed to get over those problems and everybody is available for Sunday and we are confident that we can do it this time," he says.
Asked about his own commitment to the team and the enormous amount of travelling he has to do as a result, he says: "Sure I'm stone mad. Everyone knows that. Some people take drugs or drink. I take football. It's a simple as that. I'm 60-years-old, but it keeps me young. I can't imagine life without football."
To return to the racing theme. It appears that old rule of the GAA which seems to put a distance between the association and the racing fraternity is an anachronism dating back to other times. At some matches bookmakers and punters frequently caused trouble, sometimes by spreading rumours of match-fixing and bribery. In its wisdom, the GAA of the day banned the lot.
Nowadays some gambling on football and hurling matches certainly takes place, but in a more orderly fashion and abuses are virtually unknown. Many people prominent in racing have a huge interest in GAA as well. There is the story of Christy Roche dashing from the winner's enclosure at Phoenix Park, straight to a taxi and an All-Ireland final in Croke Park where he watched the match from the Tipperary bench still wearing his racing silks. The then manager of Tipperary, Michael `Babs' Keating, is a racing fan and several other prominent GAA people, such as Colm O'Rourke of Meath, are known to be keen followers of the sport of kings. One fancies, however, that whatever the attraction of the odds, if Michael Osborne, or Mick O'Dwyer or other Kildare racing people, were to risk a few pounds on the outcome of Sunday's match, their loyalty to Kildare's cause would far outweigh any consideration of personal gain.
