TALKS BETWEEN the Turf Club and its officials are set to start again on Thursday at the Labour Relations Commission in a bid to avert a potentially bitter strike action next weekend.

The Turf Club Officials Association has voted overwhelmingly to strike on Sunday at both Leopardstown and Clonmel if a dispute over pay and conditions, as well as integrity service cuts, is not resolved.

Talks at the LRC have broken down once already but the Turf Club has opted to go back there rather than take the dispute to the Labour Court.

However, racing’s regulatory body has also started training replacement personnel, including some former and retired officials, ahead of this Sunday in an attempt to keep racing going if there is a strike, a move that has displeased the TCOA and which has provided a taste of the depth of feelings that could spill over if strike action goes ahead.

The TCOA chairman, Michael O’Donoghue, stressed yesterday his members were going into the LRC talks with a positive attitude and hoped the Turf Club would do the same. But he also said the association is united in its determination to fight cuts.

“We have never been more united but I have to say that morale amongst officials, many of whom have given a lifetime to this job, is the lowest I’ve seen in my 27 years,” he said.

“I wasn’t contacted at all about training but I do know at Fairyhouse on Saturday there were some people observing, including Denis Egan (Turf Club chief executive) who is apparently training to be a stipendiary steward.

“I don’t know whether it is amusing or annoying that a person can get two or three days training and then be a qualified stipendiary.

“That’s a terrible reflection of what our jobs are supposed to be,” O’Donoghue added.

However, it is the matter of former officials coming back to work if strike action goes ahead that appears to have annoyed the TCOA most of all.

“No one wants to go on strike, least of all us. If it goes ahead, we realise that trainers have horses to run, owners want to run, and jockeys have a livelihood to make. This is a big business. But it’s our livelihood too.

“What really gets our backs up more than anything is the idea that ex-officials or retired officials would walk by us. That would make your stomach churn, shafting your own like that.

“These people have got a good pension out of their service, better than ours, and then to come back and do that to the current crop of officials who are fighting in the Labour courts is annoying. If they are retired, they should just leave it at that,” O’Donoghue said.

The Turf Club chief executive, Denis Egan, has stated he plans to numerically have a full team of officials at both meetings on Sunday.

Egan has also said the Turf Club will go into the new LRC with an open mind, although stressing that cuts remain essential on the back of reduced funding from Horse Racing Ireland.

Leopardstown on Sunday is due to host its traditional post-racing gallops work-out for many of the top Irish hopes going to the Cheltenham Festival which starts 16 days later.

Horses like last year’s Arkle Trophy hero Forpadydeplasterer could school over fences at that session after Tom Cooper’s charge pleased his connections in a gallop that encouraged he may yet make the festival.

Forpadydeplasterer had earlier in the month been ruled out of an attempt on the Queen Mother Champion Chase.