LIMERICK WHITE CHOICE FOR
Emma White and her family took the major decision to up sticks from Sedgefield and take on the supremo role at Limerick Racecourse. The bold move appears to be Donn McClean working out as Donn McClean discovers.
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mma White was up early on February 1. Three o’clock in the morning, and she could hear the wind and the rain, beating against the walls
and the windows of her cottage. She wasn’t asleep anyway. Not really. So many
thoughts swirling around her head and dying for the day to get going so that the waiting would stop, and the doing would start. Nervous? Not really. Maybe a little. A nervousness that serves to sharpen your mind, laced with the excitement that goes with starting something new, the uncertainty of what the day might bring. “My cottage is just off site,” says White, the
newly-appointed manager of Limerick Racecourse, from behind her desk. “So literally, I open my door and I’m on the
racecourse. I actually locked myself in the house, just to stop myself going out and walking the track. It didn’t hold me in for too long though. I was a little nervous at what effect the weather would have on the track so, at about five to five, I was out of the door and onto the track. I was nervous that the wind would have tightened up the track, but the rain had soſtened it up too, and the going was
24 RACING TV CLUBMAGAZINE
bloody perfect!” She went back to her cottage and was having a cup of coffee when she received a call from Val O’Connell, clerk of the course. “Well, are you ready to walk the course Emma?” “I’ve already been out Val!” You check the track first, make sure that it is set,
ready to go. Then you go around the stables, make sure everything is in place. Then the industry areas, simply because the industry people are the people who arrive first. Get that boxed off, then you’re off checking the public areas, checking bars, checking restaurants, doing security briefings. Spare Brakes won the first race, a two-mile-
five-furlong claiming hurdle, Robert Tyner’s horse, driven to victory by Shane O’Callaghan. Just held on from Sight Nor Seen and My Manekineko. Off and running. “Once racing starts, you want to make sure
that everyone is having a good time,” says White. “That nobody is upset about anything. Customers, jockeys, stable staff, trainers, owners. Everybody. Everybody is a stakeholder in the day. “Whether you’ve come to watch the racing as a
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