AT risk of showing my age, I can remember the introduction of wheel discs to stop horses legs going through the spokes of wheels. I can remember when the track record was 2.12 and the first modifed sulkies. I recall the first IR£1,000 race and the two-minute barrier being broken. Yes, it’s like a big dream on fast forward but Portmarnock Raceway celebrates 50 years of racing tomorrow.

Memories include wiry tough sorts like Andy Williams, Thorbendes, Game Lobell and Winter Fair. Then there were the classy animals with some US or ‘Saunders’ blood, like Smoke Away, Pipers Gold, Saunders Major and Eastwood Relko. The Cork raiders included Bye Chance and Limed Hazard.

The drivers from north and south. Liam Wallace, hale and hearty with his confident manner. Harry Murdock who always seemed to arrive on the line. Patsy Fagan who could make bad horses look decent. The excitement when Phil Robinson from England would come over to drive. The two occasions that Delvin Miller ‘harness racing’s goodwill ambassador’ from America came to drive at the meeting.

Paddy Manning, from Limerick, who always had a box full of runners. Bookies Jim ‘Gyp’ McKnight, the original Jack Kelly and Terry Rogers who brought his flair for publicity to the sport. Walter Cunningham and Paddy Kane who would sell you the shirt on their back and then maybe swap for another shirt and a belt, with a pair of socks for luck of course.

I spent every Sunday as a child travelling to Portmarnock. Tomorrow we celebrate this legacy. There will be much mention of the founding father, Hughie Richardson, born hard and late not in the Liberties but over at Gardiner Street. The modern sport in Ireland owes its existence to the shrewd Hughie who seemed to eek a living out of the raceway for many years.

The colour of an outhouse would be determined more by the paint that was the right price than by an eye for design. Every year new parts of the track popped up in time for the opening meeting cobbled together by Hughie, the resourceful Peter Richardson and a squad of cousins, neighbours and simply ‘trotting men’.

None of the aforementioned ever got into the top band on the tax return but they were wealthy on Hughie’s witty sayings and tips about horses and men.

In the early years of the new century, Hughie, for reasons best known to himself, decided to cash in his asset. A substantial deal was made for the track to go for building. Harness Racing in Dublin was decimated. Meetings at Garristown and Saint Margarets were tried and a well laid out track opened at Annaghmore but horsemen in the capital really missed the venue at Portmarnock.

Fortunately, around 2012 the crash in the building trade enabled current IHRA chairman Mark Flanagan to lease the venue from the then owner. There have been various changes in club structure and the track itself came on the market, but by and large the IHRA are still the sitting tenant at time of writing.

Mark Flanagan’s other master stroke was to enter into negotiations with Le Trot of France and this body are tasked by the public purse in France to promote racing, breeding and export of Trotteurs Francais. ‘Et voila’ as they say.

French breeders who were anxious to sell stock got hooked up with the IHRA, who were keen to get a ‘trotting’ programme (as opposed to pacing) off the ground. Five years later the Le Trot scheme is well founded in Ireland. Remarkably, some of the mares and geldings who had already been well used in France are now in their fourth and fifth season racing in Ireland.

Descended from the Norfolk Trotter (a now defunct English coach horse breed) these French Trotters are very tough.

Happily, tomorrow’s meeting sees a competition between five French drivers and five Irish drivers. The top bend at Portmarnock will feel like a hairpin bend compared to the gentle turns on French tracks but the visitors have proved on previous visits to be tough opponents.

There will be a marquee lunch for invited guests at which the guest of honour will be Jack Wilson (86) of Belfast who is believed to have driven the heat and final winner in August 1969 when Hughie Richardson held his opening meeting here.

The formalities commence at 12:30pm. A plaque will be unveiled at 2:50pm to commemorate the anniversary. Various dignitaries and a French delegation will be in attendance.

The first 100 first-time visitors to Portmarnock’s anniversary meeting tomorrow will receive a free pint and a free €5 bet. First race is at 3pm, full programme of both pacing and trotting races. The track is on the R107 at Kinsealy Chapel.