Frankie Dettori rode at Down Royal for the first time on Friday© Photo Healy Racing
The Irish Champions Festival weekend has finally bedded in as a major sporting event in the calendar. The twin meetings at Leopardstown and the Curragh along with the Dublin Racing Festival in February have been welcome innovations to the Irish racing fixture list in recent years.
These fixtures, along with the traditional high-profile Festivals such as Listowel, Galway, Punchestown, Fairyhouse at Easter and Derby weekend prove that the best of horse racing can still compete on an equal footing with the other major sports in Ireland.
Not long ago the only sport that regularly affected horse racing’s share of voice in Ireland was the GAA, but when you look at the counter attractions last weekend, Leopardstown and the Curragh did well to stay relevant.
Both Leopardstown and the Curragh had to compete with our national teams playing Rugby and Soccer. There was also the Irish Open Golf taking place on the doorstep of the two racing venues with Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry in strong contention across the weekend.
Aidan O’Brien training his 4,000th career winner, while also conjuring a Lazarus-style comeback from his dual Derby winner Auguste Rodin in the big race of the weekend was enough to ensure horse racing didn’t get left behind in the battle for newspaper inches.
A pair of four runner Group One contests at the Curragh on Sunday was disappointing, if not totally unexpected, in a flat season that has been blighted by small fields for prestigious events. Unlike the Juddmonte International and Eclipse Stakes, which were enthralling four runner contests, Sunday’s National Stakes and Irish St Leger were poor relations in that regard, with both races effectively over with a quarter mile still to run.
Racing is likely to struggle to get a look in with the Ryder Cup and Rugby World Cup getting blanket coverage in the media over the coming weeks, but thankfully it is a relatively quiet time anyway for the sport.
A problem, as I see it, for racing going forward is its inability to make radical changes in order to compete with other sports for media coverage. Both on the domestic and global front horse racing tends to be too fragmented, powered by self interest and stuck on tradition to really hold its own against other sports in a modern media-driven landscape.
With regards to tradition I’m not referring to the likes of the historic races such the Irish Grand National or the dressing up for Royal Ascot. These types of traditions add to the appeal of horse racing. What I’m referring to is the rigidity of thought when it comes to the racing programmes in all countries.
Let’s say some sponsor wanted to back an entire card of €1 million races in Ireland. Straightaway, I’d guess, the venue would be narrowed down to one of possibly three racecourses and then the races themselves would have to be all Grade One/Group One contests.
Even trying to find a period in the year that would suit all the stakeholders would be virtually impossible as it would impact on the Flat Pattern or the current road to Cheltenham for the National Hunt boys.
Other sports, such as Rugby and Darts, have managed to completely reinvent themselves for a modern media landscape and if horse racing is to truly compete in the years ahead it may have to find a way to do the same.
This time last year there was great excitement in Kerry as, arguably the biggest draw in horse racing, Frankie Dettori was all set to ride at the Listowel Harvest Festival for the first time, but a suspension picked up in Germany knocked the visit on the head at the eleventh hour.
Unthwarted, the Listowel committee rearranged the visit for 2023 and the Italian rider made a commitment that he would honour his arrangement with them for this year’s Festival.
It came to light last week that when Listowel Racecourse contacted Dettori to firm up the arrangements for next week’s Festival visit the price had suddenly gone up.
Frankie Dettori, now in the middle of his farewell tour, is reputed to have originally agreed an appearance fee of €4,000 for his day at next week’s Festival, but has now upped the price to a whopping £15,000.
A more than 300% increase on an amount he had already shook hands on is not a good look.
Dettori was presumably offered something similar to the £15,000 to ride at Down Royal last Friday and thought he’d chance his arm for the same from Listowel.
Not surprisingly, the cute hoors in Kerry were having none of it and told him to take a flying dismount and will carry on without him.
The good news for Listowel is that they will have appearances throughout the week of their Festival free of charge from other legends of the game such as Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Aidan O’Brien, Dermot Weld, Rachael Blackmore, Paul Townend, Jack Kennedy, Colin Keane and possibly even Ryan Moore.
Finally, a look at the attendance figures for Irish Champions Festival 2023.
10,019 people attended Leopardstown on Saturday (10,280 in 2022) and 8,646 were at the Curragh on Sunday (6,742 in 2022).
Overall 18,665 this year compared to 17.022 in 2022. A healthy increase, if still some way off the inaugural Irish Champions Weekend in 2014 which saw in excess of 24,000 people turn up over the two days.
It’s also a long way behind the Dublin Racing Festival back in February of this year which saw 34,591 attend those two days of National Hunt racing at Leopardstown.
