THIS is my 50th year working in the stable yard at Listowel. I first applied back in 1975, when I was in secondary school. There would have been a few jobs going for local lads to help out during the festival. Although I didn’t get it that year, I was successful a year later. I’ve been here ever since!

With only the two meetings at Listowel annually, it’s a part-time role and I’d always take holidays from my main job during the races. Now that I’ve retired, I don’t need to do that anymore. When I was in primary school and the first year or two of secondary, schools would have closed for the races. It was a three-day festival up until the mid-seventies when a fourth day was added.

From 1977, it became a five-day festival. At that stage, the schools couldn’t close for that long but I’d always go racing one or two days every year. I’ve never missed the Listowel races since I was five years old.

Tom Carmody was in charge of the stable yard when I went in first in 1976. I was responsible for allocating stables to trainers and stable staff as they came in with horses. I also had to look after the stables, keep them clean and wash them out after racing each day.

I worked with Tom every year right up until 1992. I took over the role of stable yard manager after that. Basically, I would go in and get the stables ready about three weeks out from the races. I still do that up to the present day.

It’s very different these days, as everything is done with a power washer. When I started, it would have been manual. There are 122 boxes in the stable yard and I will clean each of those before our meetings in June and September. Once the racing starts, we then get a few local school kids in to help out each day. Just like I would have done back 50 years ago.

Early days

In the early days, there would have been a rake of overnights. CIE still transported most of the horses at that time. Nowadays, most trainers would have their own lorries and those that don’t tend to use transport companies. Curragh trainers and those based up north would come down for the week and stable their horses at the course.

Those around Tipperary and the south would travel up and down on the same day. We would easily have 40-50 horses stabled here during the week. It’s a rarity now but sometimes a few from Wexford or the north would still stay overnight. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say 8-10 horses still board here during race week.

After leaving school, I worked as a mechanic for 20 years, before getting a job at Kostal in Abbeyfeale. During that time, I’d always take time off every year before the two race meetings. Now that I’ve reached pensionable age and have retired, I look forward to the work at Listowel even more. I’d know all of the head lads and girls, who have been coming here for years. It’s great to catch up with them. Listowel is a huge gathering place for people from North Kerry and, many of those living overseas would come home for the meeting in September. Seamus Lynch, Eamon and Pat Lacey, Tom Cooper and Charlie Hanlon trained locally over the years and gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about.

Athea man Eoin McCarthy is the trainer locals tend to follow these days and he had an amazing week last September, finishing as leading trainer with six winners. Since 2000, my wife Kitty has run the stable yard canteen at Listowel. Mrs McElligott (Mrs Mc) originally had it and, her daughter Helen Hennessy then took charge.

Kitty would have worked with the latter before taking over when she retired. There is a good range of food and drink available for stable staff, such as chips, sausages, soup, sandwiches, tea, coffee and minerals. We work well as a team, with me managing the stable yard and Kitty in the canteen.

At the recent Irish Thoroughbred Industry Employee Awards, Listowel won the racecourse award. It was great honour for us, especially given that that particular award was voted on by the stable staff. Those hard working men and women are the heart of the whole racing industry and, to have their approval means a lot to us. It shows that we are doing things right here in Listowel.

Despite this, we aren’t about to rest on our laurels and hopefully we can continue to improve facilities and do even better in the coming years.

Paddy was in conversation with John O’Riordan.