I Wouldn't Cross The Road

A lot of those diehard National Hunt fans the country is supposedly full of - the ones who famously wouldn't cross the road to see the Derby - seem to have plans to be somewhere else rather than Leopardstown for this weekend's 'Dublin Racing Festival.' This is a showcase concentration of some of the sport's most valuable races into two days. It's the National Hunt version of 'Irish Champions Weekend.' It's worth €1.5 million. It can hardly get better. And the place won't be full.

Leopardstown can hold 18,000 people. But Horse Racing Ireland officials predict attendances for the two days of 24,000. The first 'Irish Champions Weekend' in 2014 pulled attendances of just over 24,000. There was an industry push to get boots on the ground and there were reportedly freebies galore. But the snobby, elitist flat game got a turnout the supposedly more egalitarian and popular National Hunt sector now aims only to match.

A tendency to downplay the importance of racecourse attendances has developed, funnily enough often in correlation to any slide in figures. Instead comes talk of 'positive visitor experience' and 'cross-platform media profile exposures' and the like, talk that somehow dries up when it comes to plugging a positive figure through the stiles. Attendances are a blunt instrument. But they remain a gauge of public sentiment and of the sport's essential spectator appeal.

So while there may be a trace of dirty pool about revisiting the first instalment of a vigorous hard-sell promoting the new festival, it would also be disingenuous to park to the side Ruby Walsh's expectations for the 'Dublin Racing Festival' when it was launched last September. The champion jockey might now wish he'd bitten his lip a little but at the time he sounded eminently reasonable and no doubt had the PR bods purring.

"I hope they can make it as big as it should be. Look at Croke Park on Sunday for the Ladies Football Final - over 46,000 people, an event properly marketed, affordable and a great match," he was quoted as saying.

"Full at Leopardstown is only 17,000. The place has to be full. Fill it from lots of different levels of society. Everyone has to be targeted, included and made feel welcome," added Walsh who admirably didn't resort to 'visitor experience' jargon.

"Crowds are important: you fill the place - simple as that. Horses tend to attract crowds, like Winx (in Australia.) The best of what we have is running and the atmosphere must go with it. This is a huge showcase thing. It's very brave to give up two Sundays for a Saturday.

"It's an incredible programme. But with 1.6 million people living in or around Dublin, you have to fill the place," he reasoned.

Walsh was only stating the obvious. Of course the place should be full each day. 18,000 is hardly the Marcana. GAA club games get that sort of crowd and don't take place within the M50.

If flat racing's shop-window can pull 24,000, it's hardly unreasonable to presume the branch of the sport with supposedly deeper social roots, and a history of greater public resonance and popularity, would fill an 18,000 capacity facility, watching action that's about as good as it gets in terms of quality, competition, prizemoney and even has the bonus of Cheltenham implications.

Now HRI is talking about attendances being a secondary issue. This on the back of a vigorous promotion push in which targeting a massive Dublin audience on Leopardstown's doorstep was originally to the fore, something that now seems to have slipped in priority behind attracting enough UK racegoers to reach a modest 24,000 figure.

Such expectations say a lot, although about what precisely is hard to gauge. There's an argument that any new initiative takes time to bed-in. But against that there's usually nothing like novelty to pull a crowd. Is pitching low simply realistic, or a way of dampening expectations, or just a lack of ambition? Maybe it's just a very sobering comment on racing's public appeal.

One area that's provoked comment is a lack of cross-channel entries for the new festival. But the British were never going to come. Connections with a prime Cheltenham fancy were never going to risk travelling their horse to Ireland five weeks before the festival that really counts. For one thing, there appears to be a shortage of real top-notchers across the water anyway. And for another it's not in the British brief to promote an Irish venture.

It was interesting to hear the Naas chairman Dermot Cantillon concede that the progressive Co. Kildare track wouldn't exist but for media rights. The former HRI board member said up to 80 per cent of Naas' income comes from media rights with just 15 per cent from gate receipts. Cantillon too was only stating the obvious. TV money is king.

Cantillon made a number of other points at the official opening of the impressive 'Circle' building at Naas on Sunday. In particular he believes the best fixtures should be allocated to ambitious tracks, those "that make the effort, the safe tracks, tracks that bring racing forward and show it in its best light."

To illustrate his point he referred to the promotion of the Flying Five Stakes to Group One status and expressed regret it was lumped in with the other top-flight events over 'Irish Champions Weekend' when it could have made a bigger splash if given to another track, say like Naas. He was backed up by the HRI chairman Joe Keeling who said he was all for the giving the best races to the best run racecourses.

There's almost uniform praise within racing for how Naas operates. Cantillon also deserves credit for sticking his head over the parapet in relation to complacency about fixture allocation. He especially deserves credit for acknowledging that racing's long term future is bound up in encouraging a love of actual racing rather than settling for short-term promotional gimmicks.

However his view that racecourse success in terms of attendances and other criteria should dictate where the best races go came across as naive. It had echoes of a view once expressed by Michael O'Leary in relation to Kilbeggan that resources and fixtures should be allocated to tracks on the basis of skulls through the gates.

It sounds plausible in theory but hardly in practise: after all, where would such a policy leave the €70 million Curragh redevelopment!

Finally, a couple of things: now that pubs can open on Good Friday it's surely a safe bet that betting shops are next. Secondly, deep unease over racing yards losing their agricultural workplace status continues. This link is an attempt to put a little context on the issue:

Narrow definition of agriculture an existential threat to racing industry

But really finally, and perhaps not wholly unrelated to the stable staff issue, it's interesting to note the financial pressures some trainers evidently operate under, as evidenced by Joseph O'Brien's appearance in Kilkenny District Court last week when convicted and fined for speeding.

According to reports, the Judge asked about the defendant's means. After a discussion with his client, the Melbourne Cup winning trainer's solicitor revealed O'Brien income - €400 per week. Clearly the training game really is a vocation!