Laytown Racecourse is a

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...

venue on the beach at

Laytown Laytown () is a village in County Meath, Ireland, located on the R150 regional road and overlooking the Irish Sea. Historically it was called ''Ninch'', after the townland it occupies. Together with the neighbouring villages of Mornington a ...

County Meath County Meath (; gle, Contae na Mí or simply ) is a county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Ireland, within the province of Leinster. It is bordered by Dublin to the southeast, Louth to the northeast, Kildare to the south, Offaly to the sou ...

, Ireland. Laytown is unique in the Irish racing calendar as it is the only race event run on a beach under the Rules of Racing. The first recorded race meeting in Laytown was in 1868. The races take place on the strand for one day every September. The strand course is a straight near-level course over six and seven furlong distances. The BBC have made it the subject of a documentary, titled ''Racing the Tide'', and have included passages in their

Coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

and Countryfile programmes. The horses used to run along the beach, make a U-turn and run back. The onlookers used to stand just feet away from them to watch the racing, with no barriers in between. In 1994 an accident occurred when one of the horses became spooked by a small river stream on the course and bolted into the crowd. This caused panic amongst some of the other horses too. One jockey was taken to hospital, several people in the crowd were injured and three horses were put down because of the injuries they sustained. For subsequent meetings several safety measures had been put into practice. Barriers were constructed, the crowd were separated from the runners and now watch from a field next to the beach, the number of runners in each race was limited and the races were limited to much shorter distances with no turning round. The 2020 meeting, scheduled for 1 September, was cancelled by the races committee in July 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland. The decision was taken because of concerns about implementing social distancing at the course and village.

References

External links

Official SiteIrish Racing ProfileGo Racing ProfileRacing Post Profile
Horse racing venues in the Republic of Ireland Sports venues in County Meath Sports venues completed in 1868 {{Ireland-sports-venue-stub