Omey races: racing the tide

(A text by Sarah Warwick read at the magazine N by Norwegian issued in July 2017)

Every July people come from across Ireland for the Omey Races. Young jockeys cut their teeth on a racecourse that only exists for a few hours, until the sea washes it away.

It's raining in July - but then this is Ireland, and it's the kind of weather this country does well. The skies are grey, the air sodden, and yet the dampness doesn't seem to have affected the spirits of the spectators. Around 5,000 are lined up here along the sides of a roughly marked sand track, clutching brightly coloured umbrellas, a warm burr of anticipation and chatter filling the air.

In many ways, this might be any ordinary day at the races. There are snack-food vans and Portaloo toilets. Half-a-dozen loud-mouthed bookies, too, hawking their odds on LED boards; an MC, miked up on a flatbed truck, blathering on about pedigrees and colours; and, of course, a gaggle of jockeys who linger somewhat awkwardly off to one side, rain-sodden jodhpurs slicked to their legs.

There is, however, one key difference from your usual equestrian event: it's all taking place on the bare sea bed of the Atlantic.

Welcome to Omey, a tidal island on the Aughrus Peninsula in Connemara, County Galway, where horse racing is held on just one day of the year. Scheduled on a spring tide, when there's the longest difference between high and low water, the races make use of the few hours of unfettered access to the "strand" - normally under two metres of ocean.

In fact, one of the fastest and most impressive races of the day is that to get horses, Portaloos, riders and all back to land before the tide comes in to reclaim it.

"It's an event that people don't want to miss," says US-based photographer Michelle McCarron, who stumbled across the races by chance on a trip to her homeland last year. "Omey has the reputation for having some of the best beach races. There's a fun atmosphere to them - it's very local, there's no big advertising around it.

"There's a lot of tourism in the west of Ireland and a lot of events can be quite commercial," she explains. "Omey is one of those events that conveys the attitude, 'We're here for the horses,'... There's not all this other fanfare and distraction. Plus, Omey gets cut off when the tide comes in, so it has this kind of mystique about it."

Each year, the night before the races, volunteers make the trip out to the island to lay the half-mile (0.8km) course. Local farmers bring tractors to put in the posts (some of which have to be retrieved from the waves the following day). Once the tide goes out on the morning of the race, these are strung with rope, to make a course that will be useable for just four or five hours.

Most of the spectators come from nearby towns, like Clifden, Moyard or Letterfrack. Notable exceptions are the families of the jockeys; proud parents who come to cheer their kids - some of whom are just 14 or 15 - in what's considered one of the most important races in the amateur calendar.

"Some of them would have come from the other side of Ireland, because names can be made at Omey," says McCarron, who was impressed at the skills on show. "When I was watching I was thinking, ‘Wow, doing this must take its toll on the body.' But they seemed to be enjoying it."

As well as a fun day out, it's a serious competition for these young jockeys: a good ride can have a significant impact on a rider's reputation.

"It's really where they start up the ladder to professional," explains Feichin Mulkerrin, chairman of the Omey Race Committee (ORC). Along with the Irish Shows and Pony groups, which manage the licensing of the 20-odd horses and the registration of riders, the ORC is in charge of organising the modern incarnation of the event, which started in 2001.

The first races here, though, were held much longer ago than that - at least 100 years, according to Mulkerrin, whose grandparents were involved. "In those days they were working horses," he says, referring to the famous Connemara ponies that ploughed the farms all around here. "They used to lock them up for two to three weeks beforehand - to build them up and rest them so they'd run faster."

Before 1962, when tractors replaced the farm horses and the races were abandoned for lack of runners, the commentary came from a cart rather than a flatbed truck, and the audience would have been largely made up of Connemara folk as Irish people didn't travel to other regions much.

It was Mulkerrin and three colleagues who decided to bring the races back in 2001, with racehorses and official status - "My grandparents were delighted to see them return," he says. Today it's still a family affair, as his daughter does the social media for the event, and helps to plan and advertise the event locally and online. On the day, they're assisted by 50-60 volunteers who act as stewards, and help to strike the course before the tide rises again.

"In the evening everybody helps take the poles down and remove all the litter. It's amazing teamwork," says McCarron, who says she headed off for a "classic Irish evening" afterwards with competitors and spectators in a local pub for "Guinness, live music and the craik".

"Everybody gets out of there pretty quick," she laughs. "Because, well, because they have to."

michellemccarron.corn, connemaraireland.com/events/omeyraces 

Also in the west of Ireland

ACHILL ISLAND - Home to the amazing disappearing-reappearing beach. Back in 1984, the sand at Dooagh beach washed away in storms, but this April it returned in a freaky turn of events that's been attracting tourists to this tiny Mayo island ever since.

KYLEMORE ABBEY - Known as Kylemore Castle until nuns took it over in the 1920s (it's still a working abbey today), this striking stone building is now the most visited attraction in the west of Ireland, home to impressive Victorian gardens and a neo-Gothic church, too. kylemoreabbey.com

CONNEMARA NATIONAL PARK - Oscar Wilde described Connemara as having a "savage beauty"; visit this park and you totally get what he meant. Head up Diamond Hill for a panoramic view over to the islands, mountains and Letterfrack Bay. connemaranationalpark.ie