THE timing of major cutbacks at the Racing Academy and Centre of Education (RACE) could not have come at a worse time.

For those immediately and directly affected, it is a disaster, with many of them seeing their role there as much a vocation as it was a job. Working closely with young people, at a formative time in their lives, requires absolute dedication, and this was what students got from the staff at Curragh House, on the outskirts of Kildare town.