Racehorses, Romance, and the Irish
Today’s Wichita Eagle in Kansas carries a review of a book on Racehorses, Romance, and the Irish, which caught my attention because aside from my working on an Irish racecourse in a life before Kansas City, my grandfather lived and worked on a racecourse for over fifty years, and my father currently travels Ireland working on racecourses.
The book’s full title is A Fine Place to Daydream: Racehorses, Romance, and the Irish by Bill Barich, and because I haven’t read it, this is more a review of a review I have read, of a book I haven’t read. If you know what I mean.
In looking at Ireland’s relationship with horse racing, the book’s author begins by trying to move on from divorce through pursuing a romance with an Irish woman met by chance in London before impulsively following her to Dublin.
Randy Scholfield’s review says:
In the end, it’s all fairly unpredictable, no matter how shrewdly the gambler handicaps a race. As the Irish all too painfully know, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
And that’s true, but in all the best stories of sport and of romance, you always lose.
In my years of working on a racecourse I mixed a lot with assistant trainers, stable boys, farriers and vets, as well as the racecourse staff who traveled all over the country, and there’s no denying that they are a different kind of Irish person, so they would come out with hokey things:
such as what the Irish look for in prize horses: three traits of a bull (a bold walk, strong neck, and hard forehead); three of a hare (a bright eye, lively ear, and swift run); and three of a woman (a broad breast, slender waist, and short back)
And now you realize you’re married to what the Irish consider to be a Bull. Or perhaps a hare.
As I knew them, the cameraderie exhibited between jockeys, competing sportsmen who risked great injury every day, was admirable and humbling. Indeed, one of my favourite watchings of the English Grand National was in the Weigh Room where I watched Irish horses on television being cheered on by the most famous jockeys in Ireland - in their underwear.
If you don’t understand horse racing, or betting on horse racing, I can’t explain it to you, and surely for some people it’s like playing a state lottery, but for me, and for many I know, it’s about looking at the horses and loving looking at the horses.
It seems Barich has got this point across to Scholfield, who is clearly a fan of the book. I’m certainly intrigued, if a little fearful of it being sentimental, but I’ll bow to any man who finds love with a woman named Imelda.
See also:
• Goodbye to a Racehorse
• Feast or Famine: Emigration Assistance
• U2, That’s A Tribute 2U Fran
• Former KC Wizard Joins Irish Legend
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
