A Terrific Start but the Dublin Racing Festival has room for improvement
Last Saturday and Sunday was hopefully the start of a long term legacy. Leopardstown was held responsible for hosting the inaugural Dublin Racing Festival, and already the response has been definite, it was a big success. It’s hard to pose much of an argument against the idea either, trying to gather the sport’s best animals to race against each other just over a month before Cheltenham. The execution was almost as good as the idea, with some terrific races giving us vital festival clues. However, the Dublin Racing Festival was not a perfect weekend, and despite it being an excellent start to the legacy, there is room for improvement.
For any type of Horse Racing fan, this weekend gave you everything you possibly could have wished for. The stars were on show, the majority of the favourites delivered and Samcro not only handled the hype put on him, but in fact raised even more hype. In many other, if not all other race meetings, Samcro would have been by far the most impressive winner, he powered away to put a quality field to the sword by five lengths. “The horse was great. I'm delighted with him and Jack gave him a great ride,” said Gordon Elliott, who has never hidden the regard he held this son of Germany in. Yet, he was by no means the sole mesmerizing performance. On the first day, those ‘great performance’ accolades went the way of Footpad and Min in the two mile division. Footpad was impeccable, never missing a beat to dispense of old adversary Petit Mouchoir with ease. However, it was Min who stole the show on the Saturday card, with a much improved effort on his Christmas performance giving David Mullins no more than a steering job on his way round to a twelve length success.
As mentioned previously, the weekend was not spotless and it had room for improvements. One of which seems a simple task to rectify for next time round, the turnstiles to get in. Upon arrival on the Saturday morning before the first race, crowds were flooding in, anxious to get bets on and see the first race of the new fixture. People arriving were met with something that could be only be described as a scrum, with people clambering over and under others to get in. Most of the turnstiles were quite clearly marked with ‘Leopardstown Members’, ‘Prepaid Tickets’ and ‘Cash Sales’. Yet people were not directed correctly and therefore the whole process became messy. For these bigger meetings, surely Leopardstown have to up the level of security and efficiency, or else these issues will continue to be relevant.
Min and Footpad served up performances to remember on Saturday but you could not help but feel the day would have been made complete by a Faugheen victory. ‘The Machine’ as he is known, looked a lot better than his woeful Christmas run but still went down to the ultra game and determined SupaSundae. His run has been viewed in two very distinct opposite groups. One side holds out hope, believing that some of the old spark was back and that this was a perfect prep run for a bold bid in the Champion Hurdle. The others do not share the same optimism and state that the horse is unfortunately a spent force at this stage. It is a difficult conundrum to try decipher, but it would be foolish to completely rule out the horse if he does make the trip over to Cheltenham.
The result was not quite what people had hoped for, but the scenes in the parade ring before the race were something to behold. Firstly, Leopardstown had the genius idea of inviting some of the great Irish Hurdlers back to walk around the ring. Cheers rung out for Hardy Eustace and Brave Inca, and an almighty roar, only matched by that at the Cheltenham festival, was let out for Hurricane Fly. People were scrambling to get a good luck at the former great, and usual cheers of “Gowan the Fly” were clearly audible from all sections of the enclosure. They were quickly followed by this year’s crop of horses, with Faugheen getting a similar reception to that of the greats. It is at times like this where betting really does not come into it, everyone was willing ‘The Machine’ to run well. It was a step back on the road to recovery, we will have to wait and see whether he will ever progress further on this road.
At the centre of the marketing campaign for the Dublin Racing Festival was the belief that this festival would be a celebration of the Dublin culture. However, these vibes fell very flat on most. The day itself felt big and important due to the racing, but not for any other reason. Now for the old fashioned racegoer that was fantastic, but it did not deliver for the younger generation. It is a widely considered opinion that the introduction to music and entertainment post racing is a good idea and you couldn’t help but agree. However, if the introduction of music post racing is there to entice the young racegoer, they are going to have to produce a better list of acts to perform. With no disrespect to the performers on both days, the music seemed a little outdated and could have done with being more current. Recently, at the opening of the new stand at Naas Racecourse, the director of the course said that music and entertainment was a ‘short-term’ fix for Horse Racing. That is the case if the people you bring in our not in keeping with the ‘fresh’ look at the races that they are trying to go for. If you brought in more of a headline act, you will greatly increase the amount of teenagers and younger adults attending these races.
If that had not been enough yet, there was the delight of yet another day of cracking racing on the Sunday. Samcro claimed the headlines, and rightly so but it was not the only story to take from the Sunday card. Edwulf was all but euthanised when suffering from a heart attack up the run in at the Cheltenham Festival last year, hope had been lost, wrongly. Edwulf was the beneficiary of a dramatic Irish Gold Cup with strong travelling Killutagh Vic falling at the last when looking to win comfortably. This had occurred after a massive mistake at the second last had left the favourite Our Duke with no chance. As much as some might try and tell you that left the race well open, Edwulf still had to rally bravely to deny Leopardstown specialist Outlander and the notorious Gold Cup bridesmaid Djakadam up the long run in.
There was no issue in the jumping stakes for Monalee, who put up an extremely bold and professional round of jumping on his way to making all in the Flogas Novice Chase. The Henry De Bromhead trained gelding provided compensation for connections after an uncharacteristic fall over Christmas. The other Grade One on Sunday went to Mr Adjudicator, who denied the quietly fancied Farclas in the Spring Juvenile, with hot favourite Espoir D’Allen proving very disappointing.
All in all though it was a magnificent start to an idea that promised so much. The concern would always be that that the weekend wouldn’t quite live up to the hype. Despite a few small things that could be ironed out, Leopardstown put on a wonderful weekend of action. Everything from the horses themselves, course maintenance and parade ring MCing, it was a professional display which could only put Irish Horse Racing in a good light. After that weekend, the Dublin Racing Festival and Samcro have one thing in common, the hype is real.