Healy tips Brouder to be one of Ireland’s best jockeys

New Listowel Races Committee chairman Pat Healy’s primary hope right now is that the famous Harvest Festival meeting goes ahead in September, he tells John O’Dowd

LISTOWEL teenager Gavin Brouder has been tipped to become one of the best jump jockeys in Ireland if he can steer clear of serious injuries in his racing career.

That’s the view of the new chairman of the Listowel Races Committee and racing photographer, Pat ‘Cash’ Healy.

One of three National Hunt jockeys from the one family, Gavin Brouder already has eight winners and finished a superb fourth on Gordon Elliott’s Cracking Smart (33/1) in the Coral Cup Handicap Hurdle at Cheltenham in March. Hi brother Kevin was third in the same race on the 10/1 shot Thosedaysaregone.

Healy told The Kerryman: “If Gavin can stay clear of the injuries that have bedevilled Jack Kennedy and Bryan Cooper, he could go all the way to the very top. At his age now, nineteen, he is the best of the three lads, himself, Kevin and Gearoid.

“He could turn out to be the first Kerry champion jumps jockey since Tommy Stack in the 1970s. That’s how good he could be. It all comes down to luck, and avoiding bad injuries at bad times.”

Meanwhile, Healy is confident that the Listowel Harvest Festival will be run off as planned in September, even if that is behind closed doors due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Kerry course has lost its three-day meeting that was due to go ahead this Bank Holiday weekend,

“We would hope that Listowel will stay the same as Galway and we get our seven days,” Healy said. “We would be more than happy to re-jig the cards too if we have to. The most important thing is to run for the seven days.

“We are due to start on September 20. And who knows, things might be back to some kind of normal by then. Maybe there might be a limited number of people allowed through the gates, that would be fine too.

“We must abide by HRI rules, while HRI must abide by Government and public health rules. Maybe, with a bit of luck, some kind of mass gatherings will be back by September.”

TALK about being thrown it at the deep end... It’s only a week today since well-known racing photographer Pat ‘Cash’ Healy, of Healy Racing, became the new chairman of the Listowel Races Committee for 2020. He held his first remote meeting with other committee members last Friday. Slap bang in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.

The three-day meeting that the North Kerry track had long campaigned for was finally given the go-ahead for this year. It was due to take place this coming weekend, May 30, 31 and June 1.

As the Covid-19 coronavirus continues its voyage of destruction, Listowel’s Bank Holiday meeting is one of many events, sporting and otherwise, to have already bitten the dust. The priority for Healy now is to make sure the world-renowned Harvest Festival goes ahead in September. In some shape or form.

“I came on the board back in 2004, so I have been a director for the last 16 years. It was always something that I wanted to do personally. I like being involved, Listowel and the Harvest Festival mean everything to me,” Healy told The Kerryman in an extensive interview this week.

“As I got older, I started to enjoy the politics of the game. I wanted to give something back to horse racing and the town. It’s a great committee, it’s all voluntary, people do not get paid a penny.

“Listowel is a unique race track, in that we have to pay rent to the O’Leary family every year. The Harvest Festival has grown to become the second biggest in Ireland after Galway. Each Harvest Festival we get 90,000 people through the turnstiles over the seven days.

“The betting is phenomenal, three or four million with the bookmakers, a million with the tote. The festival is worth around 12 to 15 million to the economy of North Kerry. That’s how important it is, it’s a huge institution.

“Everything we make goes straight back into the upkeep of the race track. Nobody takes a dividend. It’s a great honour for me now to be the chairman of the races committee.”

Healy stressed that he has been lucky enough to learn from previous chairmen, who had put in such a huge effort into lobbying for the three-day June meeting.

“Yeah, I have worked under a good few chairmen and, the last two, David ‘Classy’ Fitzmaurice and John Galvin, I learned an awful lot from them. They are great business men, great finance men. They both built up great relationships within the racing game and with Horse Racing Ireland (HRI).

“We have been banging on the door to get the extra fixture in June, which we were eventually granted for this year. Now, as you can see, we didn’t even get the chance to run the meeting at all, or the new fixture. That’s disappointing, of course, but hopefully we will be fine for June next year.”

With Irish racing all set for a comeback at Naas on June 8, could Healy and the committee seek to get some extra dates later in the year?

“At the moment, we wouldn’t want to reschedule the meeting that we have lost. We could apply for more dates if we want, but we won’t.

“We want to keep the track in tip-top shape for the Harvest Festival. Look, if the course was in pretty decent shape after the festival, we could go looking for an extra day or two in October.

“But the Harvest Festival is where we make our money. We have to mind the track for that. You could race now in July or August, and get bad weather, which could affect the track, so that is not the right thing to do.”

How confident is Healy that

the Harvest Festival will go ahead as planned? And could there be spectators present?

“At the moment, we are positive and hopeful about the whole situation. HRI have already brought out their fixture list for June and July, up to the first week in August. Galway has kept its seven-day festival, but they have had to re-jig their race schedule.

“There are no mixed cards allowed because they want to keep the personnel present to as low a number as possible. Galway are starting with two flat meetings, then three jumps days, and finishing up again with two flat days.

“We would hope that Listowel will stay the same as Galway and we get our seven days. We would be more than happy to re-jig the cards too if we have to. The most important thing is to run for the seven days.

“We are due to start on September 20. And who knows, things might be back to some kind of normal by then. Maybe there might be a limited number of people allowed through the gates, that would be fine too.

“We must abide by HRI rules, while HRI must abide by Government and public health rules. Maybe, with a bit of luck, some kind of mass gatherings will be back by September.”

With the likeliest outcome at the moment, however, being that the Harvest Festival will be held behind closed doors, how big a loss would that be, financially, for Listowel?

“It would be a big, big, big problem. A big blow to the Listowel

Race Company. But, like every other business in the country at the moment, you would expect the banks to understand the situation, and that they would allow us some bit of breathing space.

“The Listowel Race Company have two projects on the go right now, and both are six-figure projects. One is that Wifi must be installed at all racecourses, it is mandatory, and the second drainage job on the track.

“They are costly projects, so you would want the Harvest Festival to go ahead as a proper meeting. Like every business, you have loans and all that stuff. Money would be a huge, huge headache.

“When will the betting shops be open? Media companies pay 50,000 euro a day to show horse racing in the betting shops. There is a perception out there that race tracks are simply happy to take the media rights money and not even encourage people to go racing. I don’t agree with that at all.

“Racing is in a different place now. You don’t have to go to a meeting or watch it on TV. You can simply watch and bet on your phone. The crowds won’t be coming back in huge, huge numbers, because those days are gone.

“We have to accept that but, at the same time, every single track goes out of its way to try and get people to come in the gate. They do their level best to make every race day as big as they possibly can.”

Could Covid-19 kill off race tracks, like it seems to have done to some golf courses and potentially many more sporting businesses, before it is finished?

“Every race track in the country would probably have loans with the banks and different projects on the go. To be fair, HRI have been very good. For every cancelled meeting up to now, HRI have given a figure back to the track. Fair play to them for doing that.

“Like I said already, if a race track runs into trouble financially, we would be going to the banks and expecting them to give us that breathing space. Every other race track would be the very same,” stressed the Listowel man.

Meanwhile, in his day job as a racing photographer, Pat Healy is counting down the days to the resumption of the sport on June 8. He is 100 per cent confident that the protocols involved in the running of a behind closed doors meeting will keep everybody present safe and sound.

“To me, a race track is the safest place anybody could be. I can walk from the car to the racecourse and back again to the car. I don’t have to even go into a building. I’m not meeting people. I photograph the action at the track, and I can do all my work from the car if I have to. I think it is a very safe environment.

“HRI have provided us all with a 70-odd page protocols document. All the personnel coming to a race track will have to get their temperatures checked every day on arrival. Then you have to fill in a form every evening if you are planning to attend another meeting the next day.

“They are asking you questions about your temperature, how you are feeling, if you have any symptoms, etcetera. And then you will be wearing a mask at the track too.”

June 8. Light at the end of the tunnel for Pat Healy and horse racing. Fingers crossed then for the Harvest Festival in September. Without the promise of better days ahead, where would we be?