THE white flag will be raised at Roscommon on Tuesday at 5.40pm to herald the start of the racing year at Roscommon. Three hours later, starter Pat Malone will get the runners underway for the seventh and final race on the card. The programme for the day has something for everyone, with four flat races, a bumper and two chases.

Twenty years ago Michael Finneran was appointed manager at Roscommon and his enthusiasm for the role has not waned. As I spoke with him on Friday he was about to head down the track to catch up with the groundsmen, putting the final touches to the course in advance of next week’s start.

The seven races on Tuesday carry combined prize money of €100,000, and hopefully this valuable pot will result in large, competitive fields. One of the sponsors on the day, Kepak in Athleague, use the day to invite customers and friends and this helps to boost the gate enormously. The Irish EBF are also very prominent sponsors, including the day’s most valuable contest.

“We are fortunate during the course of the year, when we stage nine days of racing, that we have loyal supporters, both in terms of our sponsors and the racegoers coming through the gates,” Michael told me.

The racecourse has undergone a number of transformations in recent years to the facilities, and the work in that area never ends. Plans are afoot for more upgrades at the conclusion of this year’s racing, and Michael looks forward to that work being carried out.

If racegoers were asked for a word to describe racing at Roscommon, the odds are that ‘friendly’ would be the likely favourite. The layout of the facilities encourages racegoers to mingle and this creates the atmosphere. This friendliness emanates from the top down, with Michael and his chairman Dick O’Brien out and about on the day, listening to customers and watching things closely.

Michael and his board at Roscommon face a number of challenges, not of their own making. The county of Roscommon is the least densely populated in Ireland (some 60,000 inhabitants) with a racecourse. The track therefore depends on people travelling from ‘out of town’ to watch racing.

One group of people who do travel are trainers, and for the last National Hunt season the top five trainers over jumps at Roscommon were Gordon Elliott, Willie Mullins, Joseph O’Brien, Henry de Bromhead and Noel Meade. Quite an elite group indeed!

On the flat it was no less impressive, with Jessica Harrington, Dermot Weld and Jim Bolger all saddling three winners apiece.

On the riding front, Pat Smullen and Davy Russell headed the jockey’s table in their respective codes, while JP McManus and Qatar Racing were tops in the owners’ division. Jer’s Girl and recent Grade A Punchestown winner Patricks Park were two of last year’s winners at Roscommon and the track has quite a reputation for being the springboard to success for many leading runners.

Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Imperial Call and Grade 1 hurdler Won In The Dark are two of the jumping stars who graced the turf and the winners’ enclosure at Roscommon on their way to greater success. Group 1 winning two-year-olds Wrote, Again and Preseli all tasted their first success at Roscommon, while another star to emerge was the Group 1 Ascot Gold Cup winner Enzeli.

With Irish racing so competitive now on the flat and in National Hunt circles, and opportunities to win so prized, you can expect to see more and more stars emerge from Roscommon. Maybe Tuesday will reveal the first of them!