Welcome to everyone at Dundalk Stadium tonight who has found this page - it will self destruct in 24 hours (unless I forget) and we will go back to the regular blog content.
For reasons that can only be explained by the fact that I am getting ever more sentimental with each passing year, I decided that tonight would be a great time to sponsor a race.
I had a few things on my mind: it's the 10th time John, Bernard and myself have attended Dundalk on the first night of our annual racing weekend, it is 10 years since I made that fateful call to Peter Fahey asking about training fees and "would he like to find me a horse?"; and then came the horse, Bay of Freedom, who became the genesis of this website.
I had always wondered what it cost to sponsor a race and what you got in return. Well, this is what I found out (for Dundalk anyway):
This is what you get:
- Hospitality for two people (three if you're really nice)
- The ability to name a race
- A page in the racecard
- Presentation to winning connections
- Social media
- Coverage on all racecourse screens (could be advertising collateral or, in our case, the only photo of the three of us I could find)
- Possible interviews on The Friday Club on Racing TV
- Twenty tickets for business guests (we will be donating these to a charity raffle).
- A few more things if you are a Corporation
The cost should be 1200 Euros per race, but if you are sneaky enough to pick a race that is likely to divide (and does) it then becomes 600 Euros per race. This is Dundalk's version of Buy One Get One Free or, as my sister so charmingly puts it: Bog Off. (At least, I think she was referring to this offer)
I am in a mode of not putting off what I can do today; another result of getting older (but a good one). Even so, it seemed too expensive and expansive a gesture. I ran it by Kim (my wife and regular in these blogs) so that she could shoot it down and I could get it out of my system. Instead, she was incredibly supportive “if I wanted to do it”. (I have no idea what she is planning to buy, but I am now truly scared).
It was only when I found 1400 Euros in my bag from our Italy trip (we had decided to charge a couple of day trips to our credit cards and I had forgotten I had hidden the cash put away for that purpose) that I was able to justify the whole "what you've never had, you can’t lose" mentality.
The race name was a problem for a while. We had a 'holding title' of 'Ten Years and Counting" but, as Ber (Peter's wife) said at dinner "that's really boring". The course came up with "The Three Amigos" but that sounded like something from Real Housewives of Orange County and also PJ&B; a play on our names but one which, to my American tuned mind, sounded too much like PB&J.
Eventually, with the clock ticking to the seven day before race deadline, I decide to blend the three of us, the various 10 year anniversaries and provide a little promotion to the website (and justify the tax write-off for marketing spend on my US tax return). The result was the 'Three Men ,Ten Years and a Dream Apprentice Handicap, Division 1" (and II) over 10.5 furlongs; a distance we needed to give the commentator time to say the whole race title!
At the time of writing (10am - race day) John and Bernard have no clue about this sponsorship. They may notice that Peter has a horse in Div II of some oddly named race, but will never put the pieces together. Actually John's wife and daughter have been co-conspirators in this endeavour but have been sworn to silence. I have done such a good job that Lynn (John's wife) doesn't even know that Rachel (her daughter) knows.
I am planning to tell John and Bernard as we gather for our first pint in the hotel before getting a taxi to the course; I will tell them they don't have to pay a few hours later!!
We will have a great night; I hope everyone reading this has an even better one. If you have enjoyed this in any way, please feel free to read all the previous blogs (listed below or to the right) but, be warned, there are a lot!. Also feel free to follow on X (as they say: “formerly Twitter”) @bayoffreedom and get a link to all new blogs.