Clerk of the course is a rather anachronistic job description for someone essentially in charge of a race meeting. Lorcan Wyer is Leopardstown’s clerk of the course. He used to be a jump jockey. He rode nearly 600 winners, including at the Cheltenham festival. He says that was a walk in the park compared to his job now.
Wyer is facing into four days of Christmas festival action when most Dubliners realise one of the best racetracks in the world is on their doorstep. Over 60,000 are expected through the gates to watch some of the best horses and jockeys in the sport.
In such circumstances the ideal scenario for any clerk is anonymity. That means everything is going smoothly. It’s when something goes wrong that the blame game begins. And that’s when everyone looks for the person whose signature is literally on every racecard.
It’s a formidable level of responsibility and one that Wyer obviously takes seriously. What he really wants this Christmas is to be ignored, by trainers, riders, owners, officials, the throngs of racegoers: like a good referee he craves the background, because the spotlight can be lonely.
Wyer found it out at the 2019 Dublin Racing Festival when quick ground conditions meant massive non-runners. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary criticised the lack of watering, claiming there was almost a horse welfare issue. Willie Mullins was among those top trainers up in arms.
It was the most high-profile instance of how drainage at the Foxrock track worked too well. Big heavy steeplechasers are more vulnerable to injury when the going isn’t soft. At Christmas 2021, 45mm of rain fell just before the festival and watering still took place before day two of racing.
Leopardstown’s enigmatic agrohydrology is hardly Wyer’s specialist subject. But his signature meant carrying the can. Ground is perhaps the most basic element of any race meeting. He accepts its part of the job responsibility but doesn’t pretend the experience washed off him.
“I’m still rocked by it really. What people sometimes miss a little bit, the drainage work at Leopardstown had been done about four or five years prior to that. But that particular year, the summer was borderline drought conditions, and then we were facing this potential sub-zero Christmas festival, and I put my hands up, I got it wrong.
“We really should have been so much more proactive [with watering] well before Christmas. I don’t look back with good memories of that. Looking back, I got it spectacularly wrong. It’s on me. I didn’t do enough. We should have been well ahead of it. Horrible, horrible, horrible; the focus was on the ground rather than the racing.
“And naturally and understandably it took a long time to get people’s trust again, particularly in the chase track,” he says.
Colossal time, care and investment has gone into fixing the problem. Watering the chase course began in the late summer. Almost 250mm (approximately 10 inches) of rainfall since September’s Champion Stakes has helped. Best of all, the weather fates are playing ball with a mild outlook. The dreaded frost shouldn’t be a factor. No one talks about the ground any more, so job done.
Wyer carries the can at six of Ireland’s racecourses. Galway is another high-profile gig, along with Clonmel, Ballinrobe, Roscommon and Thurles. It involves a lot of driving. He used to do Sligo too and even welcomed King Charles and Queen Camilla there in 2015- “The security surrounding that event was just next level. We’d a job to get in!”
Most of his duties are out of public view, pre-inspecting courses before declaration time, deciding on rail alignments, deciding watering levels if necessary. By race day, most things are done. What’s left is liaising with track medical and veterinary teams and making sure the show is on the road.
“My name is on the card but there’s a whole team involved. I’m employed by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, not the racecourses, and so I’m not commercially invested. But we’re all working to the same goal. That is to present the track as good as we can.
“Hopefully, as a result, customers, those people who rock up and pay to go racing, enjoy their day. All of it goes hand in hand.
“I know it’s a throwaway phrase but a good day for all of us is when horses and riders get home safe. If we do have a rider injury or an equine fatality, we all feel it, ground staff, track foreman, whoever. It rocks us, it really does.” Wyer comments.
He endured more than his fair share of injuries as a jockey when based in the north of England, until joining the IHRB in 2000. One fall at Aintree in 1996 seemed straightforward until another horse stood on his face. “It’s surprising what a plastic surgeon can do!” he joked. He was back riding in four months.
Such resilience has come in handy in his present job. He is adamant that Leopardstown has a limited number of racing lines. Even now he’s already thinking of the surface that will be raced on in April’s classic trials. That isn’t always what owners and trainers want to hear. Flak is as inevitable as the Irish weather is unpredictable.
This morning though Wyer and his team will be at Leopardstown before seven, fine tuning arrangements for one of the most high-profile dates of the year. He hopes not to have had to travel to Foxrock on Christmas Day – “If I’m there on Christmas Day, I would suggest something has gone wrong.”
