The wide open beach at Strandhill in Co Sligo is a world away from the closely-packed housing estates and busy city roads of Clondalkin where 17-year-old Danielle Brady first learned to gallop a horse.
No longer riding bareback, Danielle and three other "urban cowboy" friends from Dublin are now hunched over saddles on the backs of thoroughbred racehorses, galloping along a wintry Culleenamore Strand.
By the end of January, after an eight-month course, Danielle and 13 other people between the ages of 17 and 26 will have completed a level-two NVQ in racehorse care and track riding, an internationally-recognised qualification.
The project is the brainchild of Eddie MacDermottroe, who, along with another local horse enthusiast, Michael McElhone, teaches the trainees. The two men set up the Culleenamore Riding Company to run the course, which is a FAS pilot project. It also receives funding from the EU's Leader and Peace and Reconciliation programmes.
One of Eddie's main aims was to give young people from disadvantaged backgrounds a chance to get into the thoroughbred industry. He ran similar courses in Australia where he lived for many years. A number of the trainees have had minor brushes with the law or were in danger of getting involved in the drug scene.
Danielle, her hair hanging over flushed cheeks, and with one leg thrown over the side of her chair, pulls on a cigarette and recalls the times back in Clondalkin when she stayed up through the night to make sure the gardai wouldn't take her beloved horse, Thunder. Dublin Corporation had introduced new regulations aimed at limiting the number of horses in city suburbs and the gardai often came to seize the horses at four or five in the morning, she says.
The story of her effort to keep Thunder made the headlines in a newspaper and she was also featured in a French magazine. In the end she lost the battle and the horse was sold to a family in Dungannon, Co Tyrone. She still telephones regularly to hear how he's doing. Thunder, she says, used to follow her everywhere, even into her house.
She enjoys the course because she always wanted to ride "the proper way", but is still angry at the authorities. "If they'd let people keep the horses there would be less people on heroin because your mind is preoccupied all the time."
Having your own horse is "deadly", she says. "There's a loving bond between you and the horse - it's almost like having a son or daughter," she adds.
In the yard at Culleenamore, as a thoroughbred has his ankles hosed down, there's a curious mix of accents and no shortage of jibes. The "Clondalkin Four" have grown accustomed to the "mullas" from Donegal, Sligo and Mayo.
Bernie Spendley, at 25, is one of the oldest on the course. She used to work in a fish factory in her native Killybegs. "I always wanted to work with horses, but before there were no opportunities for this kind of thing unless you were born into the industry," she says. She is starting a job at Kildangan Stud in Co Kildare next month, where all the course participants had four weeks' work experience.
The emphasis during the course has been on acquiring practical skills. Each trainee is responsible for two horses. All the animals used are retired thoroughbred racehorses, a number of which were donated by the Smurfit family. Eddie McDermottroe says he can find jobs for all the trainees because the industry is crying out for young people with this kind of practical experience. He believes one of them, 17-year-old Dessie Cummins from Clondalkin, has the build and the ability to become a race jockey.
"The kids have come from all sorts of backgrounds, and they all have their own problems, but there's a great camaraderie between them now," says Eddie. The biggest change he has seen over the eight months is their attitude to work. "A month ago we changed the start time from 8.30 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. - if we had done that at the start, it wouldn't have worked," he says.
Ultimately, the trainees are judged by their work with the animals. "If they do the right thing by the horse, they do the right thing by us. It's down to their sense of responsibility - that's what matters," he adds.
Among his papers is a letter congratulating him on the course from the Clondalkin Addiction Support Programme.
A new batch of up to 20 trainees is due to start in February, but Eddie says additional funding will be needed as there are huge costs involved. Insurance cover alone for the first course cost more than £9,000.
A living allowance of between £60 and £100, depending on age, is provided to trainees, leaving them very short of cash after they pay for hostel accommodation and food. Eddie believes that because of the trainees' special needs, an extra worker is needed for out-of-course hours. Up until now course tutors have taken care of trainees' social needs in their own time and at their own expense. He hopes the Government's recent commitment to supporting projects designed to keep young people out of prison will be followed through.
"The funding we're getting at the moment is not sufficient to run the course properly. It would be OK if these were the type of kids who were picked up at the gate at four o'clock and taken home and given a dinner, but it's not like that," he says.
Paul Gibbons (17), from Clondalkin, says he has no doubts about what the course has done for him. "If we hadn't been doing this, we would have been locked up by now. I could see that was what was coming."
More information on the course is available from Culleenamore Riding Company Ltd on 071- 68555 or 071-60403.