Dunican taking reins at four-day Limerick festival

Christmas won’t last long for Kilbeggan Races boss Paddy Dunican this year as from St Stephen’s Day he will be overseeing the prestigious four-day meeting at Limerick Races – an honour that comes hot on the heels of his success in having Kilbeggan awarded for 2022 its first ever Grade B race.

“There is a new manager coming on board in Limerick, but he is not coming till the middle of January and I was asked by the chairman of the board, Mark McMahon, if I would take over as interim manager to run the Christmas racing festival this year,” Paddy said this week.

The Kilbeggan man – who recently graduated with an MBA – is looking forward to the festival, and especially the feature event, the BoyleSports Novice Steeplechase, a Grade 1 race, which in previous years has attracted some of the best horses in the country, and which in his view is the “probably the best race of the Christmas season in Ireland”.

Tipped to take part in it are Bob Olinger and Appreciated: “If those two horses run, it will be a very exciting race on the day,” he says.

That is just one of the total of five graded races taking place over the four days.

At the best of times, taking the reins of such a high-profile meeting would be challenging, but these days, it is of course also necessary to factor in Covid.

“There’s a huge amount of work going on at the moment for it and the festival is, without question, the social event of the year in the south-west,” says Paddy.

“The new Covid-19 restrictions have created different challenges for all of us but Limerick are investing a significant amount of money into providing additional outdoor facilities including marquees, catering facilities, bars, so all the customers will have a safe and enjoyable experience,” says Paddy, who has his fingers crossed that no further restrictions are announced between now and the event.

“It certainly is challenging, but there’s a great team down there and everybody’s working very well together to ensure that the event goes on very well.”

He has had a close association with Limerick racecourse, and he praises the location, the track and facilities and “the very good board”, who started it on a greenfield site a quarter of a century ago.

“And of course Limerick is in the heart of where many of the top horses in the country are bred, and the track has got a great history of horses winning at Limerick going on to win much bigger races in both Ireland and England.”

Kilbeggan in 2022

Meanwhile Kilbeggan track is lined up for 10 meetings over the course of 2022 – and big news is that the Axa Farm Insurance Midlands National race has been upgraded to a Grade B race:

“So it will be our first time to ever stage a graded race at Kilbeggan,” says Paddy. That is fixed for July 8.

“It’s all going in the right direction!” he says.