It is a considerable journey from working in the World Bank in Washington to being manager of Sligo Racecourse, but Kathryn Foley is delighted to be back home.

The Ballymote native has built up a remarkable CV, but being responsible for the fortunes of the picturesque little track nestled in the shadow of Ben Bulben is where Foley feels she was destined to be.

This is her seventh season now, having taken on the job in 2015. She had left the land of Yeats, its heavenly beaches, lakes and megaliths, to study at UCD, where she graduated with a degree in economics and Italian.

“I worked in private business all my life,” explains Foley. “I worked for some big companies: Monsanto, Bank of America. I worked in America at one time as well, for the World Bank in Washington DC. So I have a wide business background.

"I worked abroad for years. I worked in the Middle East. I was in lots of different places. Then I came back to Dublin for a number of years. I was involved in IT training.

“Then I got an opportunity to come back to Sligo which I wanted to do. I moved down as a project manager with a localisation company. After some years doing that, I got a call that there was a vacancy here on the racecourse. I decided to apply and was lucky enough to get this position.

“Needless to say, when I compare my jobs in the past, this would be my very favourite, absolutely. It was a no-brainer. What an environment. It has its stress, but is a lot less stressful than working in financial areas and that type of thing. It’s different challenges and a great variety.

“I look after more or less everything, apart from the fact we have a track manager, but I would be interested in the track as well. It is very interesting work. Then, of course, dealing with the public is terrific as well. I’m just waiting for that to happen again.”

She didn’t grow up around horses but is now surrounded by them, and not just at work.

“I don’t come from a racing background, but I do have a racehorse. My father, over the last 10 or 15 years, got involved in horse racing, and he has a few horses as well. I live on the farm and I have horses around me all of the time.

“It’s lovely to have that contact with horses and with animals. I think a lot of that, contact with horses, can help you get through just about anything. Especially during the pandemic, it is great to be able to go out and be so close to nature and animals and life. Horses, they’d lift your spirits.”

Those healing powers were needed through testing times. She has a skeleton full-time staff but misses the casual workers, worries for them and appreciates their patience.

But with no crowds, the opportunity was taken to address an issue that had cropped up around the bend and that work has received positive feedback from trainers and jockeys.

There were other little improvements along the way, including around the parade ring and stableyard, and regular visitors will light up when they finally get back.

And this is the thing. Sligo might not be a Grade 1 track, but it is a very important sporting and social venue in the region, attracting visitors who hang around and spend money in the hotels, bars, restaurants and other tourist attractions.

Today’s National Hunt card would invariably be at the core of a weekend buzz around Sligo and its environs but only 200 owners will be allowed attend along with essential industry people.

“The racing in Sligo attracts a lot of people. All of our racing is during the summer season. A lot of people would have their holidays booked around the Sligo Races. We would have a huge influx from Northern Ireland. They would come down this week. Sligo would be full of tourists and there is quite a lot of disappointed people, ringing me now for over a week to see if we would be able to open up or what the protocols were,” she said.

“Unfortunately, I am not ready for them this weekend. Hopefully we will get there. Because of our location, so close to the Northern counties, people come down frequently. They book into the local hotels for a few days or a week, people enjoy coming to the town. It is very vibrant for the summer. We miss that a lot.”

The connection with the local business community, as well as the general population, is evident in the sponsors’ profile, many of which are from the hospitality industry.

It is no surprise that she has so much praise for the Irish Horse Racing Regulatory Board (IHRB) and Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) for keeping racing going for all bar three months of the pandemic, with a blemish-free record of Covid transmission from the tracks.

“Obviously, financials have taken a hit, our turnover is down, but we are still able to continue. The fact we were able to race behind closed doors, it kept the industry going.

“The IHRB and the HRI, they were the people that, very carefully, stated the protocols. They did an amazing job. It really was a basis of the very strict protocols that horse racing was able to continue.

"It’s a real credit there has been no major outbreak of Covid anywhere in Ireland in the horse racing areas since the beginning of the pandemic last year in March. They have worked really hard to communicate everything very clearly to the racecourses.

“In the initial stages, they sent people down to the tracks to assist them getting the place set up, advising them what to do and the best way to carry it out. They worked in conjunction with racecourses. We worked well together and so did the trainers and jockeys, and we have to be pleased with how it went.”

And what about gender? Clearly there have been big advances in racing, like last week’s confirmation that Suzanne Eade is to be appointed chief executive of HRI. There have been challenges along the way as a woman starting off in the financial world, but Foley doesn’t dwell on them.

“I suppose there has been. Things are getting better, there is no question about that. Early on, there was hardly any women in management positions. But as time went on, girls were performing so well in every field, certainly in education.

"It was a no-brainer that you had to get women into management roles. And it has happened. It has been a credit to everybody to recognise that women should be moving up to the top. Of course we have had two female presidents in Ireland and that in itself is historic.”

So she is looking forward to today, and later in the year, when the crowds will return for some of the hugely popular theme fixtures — Peaky Blinders, in particular, proving a hit.

She praises her staff and her board, but it is Kathryn Foley who is captain of the ship. Ready to greet the passengers once more.