You might have heard of GAA players being described as “horses of men” but that’s about as close as the four-legged species get to Croke Park these days.

However, that wasn’t always the case. At the turn of the century, the site on which Croke Park is built was the setting for some of the most exciting equestrian contests — trotting races.

The sport of trotting is having something of a revival in Ireland, with Dundalk Racecourse recently opening its doors to a full day of trotting races and there are plans to do the same again this Sunday.

Despite being a somewhat unknown sport to many in this country, trotting, or harness racing as it is also known, is a multi- million dollar industry across the world and challenges the thoroughbred industry in some countries for popularity.

Last year, the prize money for harness racing in France reached €174m, with more than €4bn bet on the races.

The Swedish harness racing industry employs 100,000 people, both directly and indirectly, and more than €65m was offered in prize money.

Italian harness racers collected prize money of €94m last year. And there are million-dollar races every few days in the United States.

Compare that to the €55m prize money offered in Ireland across both the flat and national hunt seasons in 2006.

Across the United States and Canada, racetracks are shared 50:50 between conventional thoroughbred racing and harness racing, with the latter usually conducted at night under lights.

“Irish harness racing is way behind our counterparts in other countries, but we have a thriving industry of our own,” explains trainer/owner Mark Flanagan from north Co Dublin.

Together with his brother William, Mark got involved in harness racing through his uncles, who raced years ago.

Today, their Meadow Branch Stables at Ballyboughal, Co Dublin, are doing so well that they have become the leading owners in Ireland and England. Not only that, but they have a branch in Canada where they have 90 horses in training.

Mark, along with chairman of the Irish Trotting and Harness Racing Federation, James O’Sullivan, is keen to bring harness racing into the mainstream.

“It’s a flashy sport, fast and furious with all the adrenaline that goes with racing,” he says.

“Days like last Sunday at Dundalk are what we need to show Irish people what a fantastic sport this is,” he enthuses.

Crowd pleaser

To that end, Turf Club officials were invited to the race day to observe and offer advice on how the racing could be improved and streamlined for the public.

So what is harness racing, what horses are used and where can you find out more?

Unlike the typical trotting horses you see on the roads, official harness racing horses, or ’standardbreds’, have been specifically bred for the sport and have a stud book almost as extensive as the TB register. Indeed, standardbreds are quite closely related to the thoroughbreds raced on our flat and national hunt tracks.

It is a relatively new breed, having developed over the past 200 years.

Although similar in appearance to thoroughbreds, standardbred horses are usually more muscled and longer in body.

They average between 15 and 16 hands in height and typically have a bigger head, sometimes with a convex Roman nose. The breed can be seen in many colours, although bay, brown and black are predominant. Standardbreds are known for their docile personalities and willing temperaments and have less of the testy character of their thoroughbred cousins.

However, the most recognisable quality of the breed is its unusual and exaggerated gait.

The breed is divided into trotters and pacers. Trotters have the more natural movement: a diagonal gait in which the left front and right rear legs move in unison, as do the right front and left rear.

However, the skill in trotting is to get the horse trotting perfectly at very high speeds and without breaking into a canter or injuring itself.

Bizarre

Pacers, on the other hand, move the legs on one side of their body in tandem: left front and rear, and right front and rear. Pacers are often called ’side-wheelers’ because of the bizarre movement.

Pacers account for about 80pc of horses in harness racing in the US and are faster movers than trotters.

However, they need to be helped in maintaining their gait by wearing plastic loops called hobbles, which keep their legs moving in synchronisation.

Pacers are more common in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, while trotters are found more in Europe.

Races are usually contested at speeds averaging 25mph across the entire race, but the best horses hit top speeds of 30mph leaving the starting gate.

The origins of the standardbred trace back to Messenger, an English thoroughbred foaled in 1780, and later exported to the United States.

Messenger was the great-grandsire of a stallion called Hambletonian 10, to whom every standardbred can trace its heritage.

Today, one of the most prestigious harness races in the US is known as the Hambletonian.

The name ’standardbred’ was coined for the breed because the early trotters (pacers would not come into the picture until much later) were required to reach a certain standard for the mile distance in order to be registered as part of the new breed.

In 1879, the American Trotting Register considered a fair ’standard’ for a mile to be two minutes and 30 seconds.

The current British mile record is held by a horse called Stoneriggs JR who completed the mile in a time of one minute and 55.7 seconds. The mile is still the standard distance covered in nearly every harness race, during which the horses pull light two-wheeled carts called sulkys.

At a cost of between €1,500 and €3,000, the aerodynamic sulky is harnessed to the horse and allows the driver to sit very close to the rear of the animal, reducing wind resistance.

Not unlike fast cars, sulkys are upgraded regularly, with a new model on the market as often as every six months. Most are imported from the US and are engineered to allow the horse to go as fast as possible.

During training, horses are driven under a heavier, longer version of the sulky, called a jog cart. With thicker shafts and heavier tyres, the jog cart also places the driver further away from the horse.

Broken

Young horses are broken as yearlings and can race at two years old in most countries, though they rarely race until they are three in Ireland.

Their career is much longer than the thoroughbred, with many racers continuing to compete until the age of 10 or 11.

“Compared to a throughbred, you really get a return on your investment. They can race up to 40 times in a year,” says Mark.

Prices for standardbreds range from €2,000 to €15,000 in Ireland, but they can fetch multiples of that in countries where the sport is bigger.

Horses are jogged for around 30 minutes every day during training, as well as going on walkers and completing a training mile once a week.

Training

“A training mile is around two minutes 30 or 40 [seconds], compared to the race mile, which is run around two minutes, five or 10 seconds,” explains trainer Flanagan.

The majority of the 300 standardbred racers here in Ireland were either imported from the US or bred from US-imports.

The population of standardbred breeding mares here stands at around 400 and there are only a small number of stallions.

Racehorses are graded according to the races and prize money won, with grades ranging from one to 12 — 12 being those with the most money won.

However, many of the top horses are taken to Britain regularly to compete.

Last week, Mark Flanagan brought horses to York on Saturday, with plans to race in Wales mid-week as well.

The next harness racing meeting at Dundalk Racecourse is this Sunday, August 10.

The 10-race card begins at 12.45pm and all the races are available to back in the betting shops.

Admission is €10 for adults and €2 for children, with full restaurant and carvery available.

All races will be aired live on ‘At The Races’