The Kilbeggan Races, pt. 1

Located in the heart of the Midlands, the village of Kilbeggan, Co. Westmeath, is near enough the centre of the Republic of Ireland not to argue. If you have ever traveled the Dublin-Galway road, then you have been in Kilbeggan, however briefly, because this is the N6, and it runs right through the village square. From this axis point, roads radiate out to the nearby towns of Tullamore, Mullingar, Athlone, and to all farther points on the Irish compass. Tullamore is the capital town of Co. Offaly, seven miles out, and Athlone, on the Shannon, and known as the ‘Capital of the Midlands’, is only thirty miles away.

You will find Kilbeggan in no traveler’s guide. Tourists on their way to well-documented attractions in the west—Galway and Salt Hill, Lisdoonvarna and Doolin—might view the village as one more brief, anonymous flash of white-wash, so common to the Irish countryside. But Kilbeggan can offer more than a bucolic flicker past the windscreen on your way to Somewhere Else. For National Hunt racing comes to Kilbeggan several times a year, and it is then that this subdued village of six hundred hosts upwards of six thousand visitors, come for the excitement of wagering, for the social outing, and for the craic.

Six thousand might not sound like a large number, especially if you compare that figure with the internationally famous Galway Races, held in August that draws hundreds of thousands. Or, with the races held at the Curragh in Kildare, the home of many world-class stables. But Kilbeggan offers something neither Galway nor the Curragh, nor for that matter any of its local midland competitors, offer: an exclusively National Hunt format. National Hunt defines a certain body of racing rules, but to what it basically refers is the type of racing: hurls and steeple-chase. Jumping. Some years back Kilbeggan committed to this dangerous and exciting brand of racing. The crowds have obviously responded. They come to wager, and witness jockey and horse soar as one for improbable seconds over hurdle and fence.