Gordon Elliott's Cullentra Stablestaff will be hoping the May prediction is accurate© Photo Healy Racing
January - Towards the end of this month some muttering will start about how a self-enforced big race lull at the start of the year mightn't be a great idea. It won't be muttered too loudly. Publicly the Dublin Racing Festival is always wonderful. Even if the first day can't hope to compete for attention with the Ireland-England rugby international no one's going to crib about eight Grade One races and €1.8 million of prizemoney.
But aping Irish Champions Weekend by cramming every egg into one weekend basket strips January. There are four underwhelming weeks between the first Grade One of the year at Naas and the Dublin Racing Festival. That's instead of Leopardstown providing a regular big race narrative through January as it used to. The month has largely been written off as an attention wasteland in exchange for one big blow-out. The wisdom of that might start to get questioned - quietly of course.
February - Apple's Jade wins the Irish Champion Hurdle despite repeated pre-race warnings that she's only running in order to keep her busy and two miles being too short for her. Afterwards Gordon Elliott and Michael O'Leary express amazement that she's able to win a tenth career Grade One at the minimum trip. And their rivals complain at the impossibility of having to successfully concede a 7lbs sex allowance to such a star mare at any trip. Which is a fair point.
March - Thirty years after that fateful Cheltenham festival blank for Irish trained runners there is widespread presumption that 'we' will once again wrap the green flag around the Prestbury Cup, maybe even by bettering 2017's record haul of 19 winners. Except all the confidence - dare we say even arrogance - gets blown out of the water by a resurgent home team. And it's for the best in the overall scheme too. 'They' are much better at the arrogance thing!
April - Speaking of which, a week after Brexit, Ireland's Grand National contenders emerge from quarantine in Holyhead, get escorted to the Aintree line up by Captain Mainwaring and Corporal Jones, with Private Pike behind them tying new lengths of red tape onto their tails. Of course there's some white and blue thrown in for good measure too.
Then some home-grown hero here decides it will be a symmetrical laugh to mark the 22nd anniversary of the infamous Grand National bomb-scare with a phone call, just to help reinforce these ridiculous blimpish instincts about being surrounded and not panicking. Overall, a mess that only serves to prove how some people really do like it up 'em.
May - Gordon Elliott rewards a couple of hopeless mugs who've a fiver at 1,000-1 and wins his first Irish trainers championship. After twice being done in the final week of Punchestown, this time it is Elliott's turn to pip his great rival Willie Mullins on the nod. The roles are reversed. Mullins leads for almost all the season but his fortunes have never really recovered from a dip in stable form from early in the New Year.
June - Having won the Guineas by four lengths, Too Darn Hot proceeds to win the Derby by five and suddenly it looks like this part of the world might be witnessing a third truly great racehorse in just over a decade. A not insubstantial bonus for racing in general is that Too Darn Hot's classic accomplishments provide a timely profile boost. Dettori is Dettori, Gosden is at his most eloquent and while Andrew Lloyd Webber mostly looks startled at least his is a face everyone recognises. .
July - The Galway festival celebrates its 150th anniversary with plenty faux-Gael ceremony that can't disguise concerns about a continuing slip in some key statistics. The record crowd days of 48,120 in 2006 continue to look a diminishing memory. Apparently there's plenty money in the country again but there's been no return to the real good old Galway days of tents and helicopters.
The 2019 upside however is the Friday evening date becomes the best attended date of the seven days. How many of the Bank Holiday weekend visitors are here for the beer rather than the racing is arguable but still, Gaillimh Abu!
August - The Curragh stages all four of its dates this month on Friday evenings, including the Group One Phoenix Stakes, and more than a few people actually show up. It appears to confirm a trend. May's Guineas festival and June's Derby festival also saw significant attendances on the Friday. Fears that never ending roadworks on the M7 would discourage racegoers from Dublin were offset by the success of steps that encourage those on the racecourse's Co. Kildare doorstep to actually go racing.
September - HRI and the Curragh develop a 'morkoting' winner when they hire James Earl Jones to say 'People Will Come' ahead of Irish Champions Weekend. And lo and behold...
October - Too Darn Hot swerves the Arc and instead it is his stable companion Enable that starts favourite to become the first triple-Arc winner. But in a classic finish it is another filly, Almond Eye, who gets the nod. She achieves the holy grail of Japanese racing by landing Europe's most valuable race. John Gosden reveals, afterwards, that Enable missed a critical piece of work the previous week.
November - In a shock statement Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary announces he is pulling out of racing with immediate effect. He says he is sick of everyone bellyaching about a lack of competition and how things were supposedly so much better years ago when owners used to communally club together for petrol on the way to Thurles on a Thursday.
He denies however that his decision is due to unhappiness at the authorities rejecting some of Gigginstown Stud's increasingly more bellicose name choices for their horses, such as Gunship Of Gore, Krauts In My Crosshairs and Barbaric Bloodletting Bastards.
December - Altior finally gets the opportunity to run over three miles and turns the King George VI Chase into a procession. Nicky Henderson says afterwards the Gold Cup is a different kettle of fish however. So the whole going for the race you can win easiest versus sporting challenge scenario kicks off again. And why not; it's what keeps the game interesting.
