Damien Oliver is arguably the top jockey of Australia. And by that, Australians really mean the world.
Not surprisingly, he wasn't riding at Laytown yesterday, but more surprisingly Oliver was there, and wishing he was riding. The uniqueness of racing on the beach had again exercised its pull.
'Well you don't see this everyday so I had to come,' said Oliver, who plans to spend the next three months riding in Europe. He is currently based at Aidan O'Brien's Tipperary stables.
Oliver has won championships, Melbourne Cups and a host of other top Australasian races, but he turned up along with approximately 4,000 others to a beach in Meath because it really is a bit special.
Two hours before the start of the first race yesterday, Laytown strand was just that, a strand. The only evidence it would soon become a racecourse were the workmen feverishly erecting half a furlong of railing and a finishing post as the tide retreated. But turn into a racecourse it did, for the 132nd time.
'We actually have an amateur race run on a beach at home in Melbourne, but I've never had a chance to get to that,' added Oliver, who was keen to try the experience himself but couldn't get a ride.
'The other boys in the jockey room told me about it,' said Oliver who passed the verdict 'yes and no' when asked if his colleagues were actively looking forward to riding at Laytown.
In truth, the jockeys have a chequered view of Laytown, giving, as it does, opportunities, but also its own peculiar dangers. Yesterday a number of refugee streams crossed the course, including one at the furlong pole and one 10 feet after the winning post. But the season's leading rider, Pat Smullen, played down the problem. 'It's just surface water. Some horses shy at it, but it would take a real bad one to duck from it at racing pace,' he said. 'To ride on the beach is pretty good, quite fast, but the horses don't come back jarred up.'
As for the horses on view, Smullen's diplomatic description of them is 'not quite the first rank'.
The sand often is a last resort, but a good horse is always a good horse and yesterday Colins Double proved a good horse can win anywhere.
The Cathal McCarthy-owned and trained gelding won the amateur handicap over nine furlongs to add to three previous successes over fences, hurdles and on the turf.
'I was very hesitant about running him and some people said I was mad, but there's a great tradition here,' said McCarthy, who regularly makes the 30-minute journey from his home to the beach to 'give the horses a change. Knowing the beach must help.'
Knowing the form didn't help punters too much (not surprising since that form is on a totally different surface), but in recent years Eddie Ahern has proved the jockey to follow and he obliged again with the 16 to 1 Peru Girl in the seven furlong handicap.
Ahern and Peru Girl's trainer, Pat Martin, had earlier joined up for the favourite Amelesa in the seven furlong maiden, but that one had been run out of it by former champion jockey Frank Berry's first Laytown winner as a trainer, Tarakan.
'I rode a winner here in 1969, but I was only a youngfella then,' said Berry. McCarthy had another winner in the last race with Celtic Minstrel, who justified favouritism from Liffeydale.
Laytown, however, always brings those seeking the unusual and yesterday was no different with a film crew from the Japanese Racing Association filming everything that moved.
'We're filming Irish racing,' said one quietly-spoken member of the crew. And her response to what she thought of Laytown pretty much summed everything up: 'It's unique.'
