Alan Delany

I'm born and bred in Laytown, 10 minutes down the road from Bellewstown. Our family came from Laytown - my father, my grandfather and my great grand-uncle have all trained on the beach at Laytown.

This year marks 300 years of horse racing in Bellewstown and I'm on the committee here probably more than 30 years. I'm currently the vice-chairman. My father has been on the committee, and my uncle has been on it along with my grandfather, so we are a long time at it. I get a great buzz from it. We have grown this racetrack from three days racing up to nine days racing this year, and we have pumped a huge amount of money into improvements especially in the last 8-10 years. We built a new stableyard which cost over €500,000 and I think that anyone that uses it has been very complimentary of it. It works very well and is close to the parade ring.

We are all a voluntary committee, and we are headed up by our chairman Jack Gogarty who followed an iconic man here, the late Jim Corcoran. Jack has a very strong pedigree with Coca-Cola. He leads us and he is very strong financially. He has been great at getting loans and grants and putting it all together. We have two employees - Jessica and Katie in the office - and our lads on the course are headed by John Kirwan and Vincent Eivers. We are a very tight committee and we all give our time free to better Bellewstown, and also for the local people to have a facility to enjoy. Days we are not racing, the local schools that want to use our facilities can do so. We have a concert here this Sunday (5th July) when Mike Denver is coming. We have all the facilities in place for that and tickets are selling really well for that. Nobody will be turned away!

We got held up with the war in Iran (building supplies) as we were to have two buildings finished for this month, but they will be finished in the next three weeks. We are doing a big extension to the weigh room - putting in a ladies' changing room, chill-out rooms, TVs and different things. That will be a huge bonus for us here. We are also putting on a function room overflow restaurant for the busy days, and also improving our Tote facilities with new windows to serve the public.

I was intrigued when I was growing up about the Yellow Sam coup at Bellewstown in 1975. I read all the stories about it and definitely wanted to do something, so, on the 40th anniversary of it in 2015, we invited the late Barney Curley not entirely thinking he would come. I tracked him down and he said he would love to come. We actually did a little play that day and we brought Barney in to see it. Now we didn't know how he would take it, but he came out of it and he was really, really happy and impressed. We met him that day for lunch beforehand and he told us some of the great stories. The story is there for everyone to see, but he told it in real life and it amazing to hear it. He became a great friend of Bellewstown after that. He came back to us once or twice since then and, if we ever wanted anything done or advice, he would tell us.

We have had the late Lester Piggott and of course Frankie Dettori here as well. Frankie was interesting as I had tried for a couple of years to get him to come and I could never do it. Then the minute poor Barney passed, I came up with the idea that we would have a fundraiser for DAFA (Direct Aid For Africa) and we would have a race. Of course, Frankie was a good friend of Barney's and, when we put the call in, he was coming (2021 and 2023). We've also had the Arkle Charity Race (2011) and all the top jockeys riding in that. I have to mention that Caprice came here to judge the best dressed one year. There have been many, many celebrities here over the years. They all have a good day. We are so high up on the hill that they got to see seven different counties from here.

We want to have a facility here that people enjoy coming to with their families to have a good day out. We also want to be professional where we are as good as anybody else out there with the facilities we have and the racecourse. We strive to have owners well looked after, trainers well looked after, and jockeys well looked after. We want to have something for everybody, so that everybody feels involved and part of it. All the top trainers are happy to come here including the likes of Aidan O'Brien and Willie Mullins. All our local Meath trainers will bring good horses here. It is very important to the local lads because their owners are from around the area. They want to have a winner here with a good roar and a shout when the winner comes in.

My family has the oldest active colours on the go in the Turf Club. My great grand-uncle trained out of Corbal-Lis, the home place in Laytown, since probably the mid-1880s. Porridge, the winner of the Irish Grand National in 1898 came out of home. It is lovely when you got to Fairyhouse and see his name on the board there. I actually tried to name a horse Porridge three years ago as I had an idea that he might not be too bad over fences. We ended up calling him Captain Porridge as the name Porridge had gone. The colours have been handed down through the generations from family to family. Currently dad has them. During Covid-19, my wife decided we would do a book about all the family winners from the scrapbooks at home covering all the winners. Lucky enough, John Kirwan, who is our course foreman at Bellewstown, is part of the Historical Society and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of racing. He could tell you things from 40 years ago that you wouldn't remember. He was able to source every horse that won, the date, where it won and the name of the race. It is amazing. I think we are on 498 winners with the colours after the success of Dream Legend at Bellewstown on Thursday. 500 winners would be a nice memento for the family.

Dream Legend was bred, owned and trained by the family and it is lovely to continue it on. We ran Dream Legend last year when he was weak and backward. We knew that, but he needed to get experience. It wasn't a huge surprise to me when he won at Bellewstown in April. I expected him to run very well. I thought he ran even better in Gowran Park (third). We gave him a break after that with the idea to come back here. He did a bit of work last Saturday morning and it blew me away how much he had improved from 10 weeks ago. I think there is lots more improvement to come from him. We definitely haven't got to the bottom of the barrel with him. We haven't been over hard because he is still filling out. It is a good back pedigree.

My dad (Eamon Delany) would have 8-10 horses maximum riding out at any time. We are a small family organisation, but we get a great kick out of it. We are just two minutes from the beach. I'm very lucky that my wife Lisa is very heavily involved with the stable. She looks after the wellness and physio of the horses which is a real help. Emma, our Head Lass, is a brilliant girl. Unfortunately, she is off at the minute with an illness but will be back with us in three or four weeks. We are assisted by two lads riding out - Jack and Narpat. My brother Mark handles all the farming side of things - grass management and hay.

I totally enjoy working in the Irish racing industry. I find the people helpful and supportive of each other. Everybody works so hard. It is difficult as it is very, very competitive. You have world leaders in both National Hunt and on the Flat. I get a great kick and buzz from competing at the same level with the big lads, and proving to ourselves that if we are given the horse, we can do it. I love the industry, the smaller meetings and the camaraderie. If you are in trouble, any fella would give you a dig out.