New chair at Kilbeggan Races as Daly ends 14-year term
The new chairperson of the Kilbeggan Race Company Ltd has decades of service to the racecourse in the town, and in fact lives just behind it. Stephen Heffernan was elected to the post at the recent AGM of the race company and takes over from Senator Paul Daly, who vacated the position after 14 years of service.
Stephen is married to Regina and they have three sons, Colm (23), Charlie (10) and Sam (5); he is a station officer with the fire service and has been with them 22 years.
“I’ve been at that racecourse for 35 years,” said Stephen. “I went with my dad, Eamonn Heffernan, who was also a member. I was a fence steward for a long number of years and I’ve had various other jobs around the racecourse. The last job before this was starter’s assistant.”
The connection to Stephen’s family is strong, as Gannon’s bend on the track is named after his mother’s side, and the family farm across the road is where his uncle Tommy still lives.
Stephen has been on the committee for 25 years, and says Kilbeggan needs to keep progressing.
“We have the public coming back again this week, which is fantastic to see. You can run the races no problem but the atmosphere is not there without the general public.
“We want to update our facilities, and at the moment we’re doing a complete refurbishment, cleaning the place up, tidying it, getting it repainted.
“We have a programme to build new stables and we’re preparing to install a facility to water the track, so we hope to fit a complete system so that we can water the track as we need.
“We’ve bought new machinery to maintain the track and we have a new marquee for this year, so people don’t have to be inside, with Covid times. It will be open air, and there’ll be space for a band too.”
Stephen said that the committee work to facilitate everybody and they see the racecourse as a family venue, “somewhere you can bring the kids and everyone along”.
Concluding, Stephen paid tribute to Senator Daly: “Paul, and the Daly family, are long standing members of Kilbeggan Race Committee. Paul was chairman for all those years and his uncle Tom Lynam, RIP, was also a long time member and an important cog in the wheel of Kilbeggan, so definitely the Dalys have been stalwarts for Kilbeggan and we are grateful for all the work they put in.”
He also thanked Paddy Dunican, manager, and the ground staff for “the great work they are doing to get the course ready”.
In a statement Senator Daly said: “It was a great honour to have served in the position for 14 years, firstly in an acting role during the illness of my late uncle, who was then chairman Jimmy Daly, RIP, and assuming the position in my own right on his death.
“My family on both my mother’s and father’s sides have had a long association with the race committee – my grandfather, uncles and father were all active members.
“For a number of personal reasons, I felt prudent thing to do at this time was to step aside and allow a new person with fresh enthusiasm and ideas assume the role.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the helm, and I wish my successor Stephen Heffernan all the best of good luck during his tenure.
“I intend to stay actively involved in the committee and look forward to what will hopefully be a very successful season commencing on April 21.”