Basking can help time fly but after last year’s success the stage is set for Irish Champions Weekend II when Leopardstown and the Curragh showcase this country’s racing to the world on Saturday and Sunday. After the novelty of 2014, it’s time to pony up again.
The Curragh boss has likened it to “difficult second album syndrome”. The excitement of seeing years of thought and preparation poured into the first one quickly followed by demands to top it.
It’s a tough ask to improve on last year when an industry en masse put its shoulder to the wheel to push-start an exciting new initiative and was rewarded with drama and controversy which was pretty much picture-perfect in terms of selling racing here to a global audience.
The dividend is evident with a new high-profile international sponsor on board and various incidental features such as a burgeoning list of those “partnerships” which invariably now accompany big sporting events stamped with the corporate seal of approval.
So potentially Champions Weekend II will be a long way from Second Coming and much more Nevermind – and yes I am dating myself.
Prizemoney has increased to €4 million over two days containing five Group 1 races with, best of all, an Irish Champion Stakes possessing enough ingredients for it to be legitimately considered the best run anywhere in the world in 2015.
The connections of the Epsom Derby hero Golden Horn, the dual-Guineas winner Gleneagles, top-older horse Free Eagle, last year’s winner The Great Gatsby, and a handful of other elite performers all have Leopardstown’s showpiece in their sights.
Fast ground
Should they all show up we could be talking a day in everyone’s racing life: one of those unforgettable “I-was-there” moments to bore the kids with: all that’s required to make it happen is fast ground conditions, which means all it needs is for the weather to continue to play ball, which sadly in Ireland is like depending on the stability of a bag of rats in a forest fire.
The Met Office juju merchants are already resorting to phrases such as “unsettled” for this weekend, no doubt a prudent each-way bet which doesn’t exactly provide for an anxiety-free run-in.
It must be very frustrating for those charged with plugging this race that the final line-up might be in doubt right up to the day itself but that’s the nature of holding anything outdoor in this country, a wonderful little place if only it could be roofed.
Maybe it’s a salutary reminder in a game of billionaires and royalty that no amount of investment can dictate whether or not it’s going to rain but you don’t have to be hanging out in the Owners & Trainers Bar to rue how massive racing events so often teeter on something as mundane as the weather.
For instance, since Aidan O’Brien declined to run Gleneagles in three top summer races because conditions weren’t quick enough, including Goodwood’s Sussex Stakes, a race run on officially good ground in July, there mightn’t be much presumption on the brilliant colt’s participation this Saturday until he’s safely packed into the starting stalls.
Whether the absence of one or more of the headline acts would produce an anti-climactic feel around this Champions Weekend as a whole is as hard to predict as the weather.
On such a high-profile occasion, with so many international visitors committed to coming, crowd figures may be climatically immune, although it’s worth remembering that when the skies opened on Champion Stakes day in 2013 just 8,786 attended, compared to 13,190 last year.
However, any analysis of the Champions Weekend attendance has to be kept in the context of how “Ladies Day” alone at next week’s Listowel festival will trump its combined total. Racegoers here have long since voted with their feet for what they want from a day’s racing and watching some of the world’s best horses and jockeys in action doesn’t seem to be a priority.
Horse game
Champions Weekend, however, is primarily about selling the horse game here internationally, putting on a show that highlights Ireland’s incontrovertible claims to being a world leader. Emphasising the point never does any harm. And while some things are in the hands of fate, others are controllable.
For instance, there’s no disputing the Champion Stakes’ credentials to be the weekend highlight. Yet it’s on the first day which inevitably conjures an “after the Governors Ball” vibe to the Curragh action. Surely the natural flow should lead towards a culminating highlight.
Perhaps more importantly, though, it can’t be beyond the European Pattern Committee’s wit to allow Champions Weekend be centre-stage on its own.
Instead, after a comparative Group 1 lull in the weekend just passed, we’re facing into an upcoming glut where Leopardstown clashes with the Doncaster St Leger and, perhaps more importantly, the Curragh has to compete for profile with Longchamp’s Arc Trials meeting in Paris. No one wins from such a crammed schedule yet everyone stubbornly refuses to budge: but if others won’t move why can’t Champions Weekend?
It could have had the last two days to itself, clashing with the All-Ireland hurling final and a football replay, yes, but should such domestic considerations be allowed influence what is essentially an international show? And shouldn’t racing have the self-confidence to back itself as an attraction anyway? A 2016 re-jig is not impossible and it’s worth noting how many believe the third album is the real bitch: why not make it less Be Here Now and much more Born To Run.
