Top quality Flat racing fails to woo an Irish audience like the Jumps can The international aspect to the Irish Champions Festival weekend is most refreshing to see. Over the two days of the Irish Champions Festival last weekend we got to see 33 foreign horses race on Irish soil. Across the weekend the foreign-trained runners won over €1.5 million of the prize money on offer. Somewhat remarkably, they collectively won €783,000 on Saturday at Leopardstown and then won the exact same amount again on Sunday at the Curragh. We had runners not only from Britain, but also representatives from Germany, Australia and Japan last weekend. Compare that to just 4 British-trained runners over the two days of the DRF back in February. International appeal vs. domestic interest For some reason Irish racing struggles to attract top quality British runners to our premier National Hunt fixtures, most notably the Dublin Racing Festival (DRF), where there is ample opportunity and prize money on offer, but none of the best British horses bother to turn up. The action from Leopardstown on Saturday was broadcast into 150 countries, thanks to the World Pool involvement, and this once again shows the global reach of Flat horse racing compared to the jumping side of the game. It is strange, however, that Ireland is such an outlier when it comes to the two strands of the sport. While we excel at all aspects of both Flat and National Hunt racing, both at home and internationally, the Irish public have very little interest in flat racing. Irish racing fans clearly prefer the excitement and drama of jumps racing over the flat variety, despite our excellence in both disciplines. Attendance figures tell the story 11,354 attended Leopardstown on Saturday for the Irish Champion Stakes Day (a 12% increase on last year), but this is a modest figure when compared to the fact that the attendance on each day of the DRF at the same course in February of 18,500. And that figure could have been significantly higher had that racecourse not capped the attendance for each date of the jumps weekend. The Curragh attracted 8,361 patrons on Sunday, down 5% on the same day last year. Why is Ireland so different from other countries in this regard? Even in the UK, where the big jumps events are also hugely popular, the Flat can still attract very big crowds. Around 27,000 attended Doncaster on Saturday to see Scandinavia win the St Leger while less than 20,000 turned up across the two days of Irish Champions Festival, with far superior racing on offer. Article highlights: Foreign-trained runners won €1.5 million at the Irish Champions Festival, with racing broadcast to 150 countries Despite Ireland's excellence in both Flat and National Hunt racing, domestic audiences strongly prefer jump racing Less than 20,000 attended the Irish Champions Festival while UK Flat racing at Doncaster drew 27,000 for the St Leger Thrilling action on the track On the track itself we were treated to some thrilling action at both Irish racecourses. The Moyglare Stud Stakes was a particularly intriguing contest. The winning time may have been two and a half seconds slower than Zavateri's National Stakes victory an hour later over the same course and distance, but I'd be pretty sure we saw some very talented fillies on display. Precise rightly took all the plaudits for her impressive victory in the hands of Ronan Whelan, but I was also quite taken with the performance of the runner-up Beautify. She travelled better than anything else through the race and most likely wants a quicker surface to be seen in an even better light. The third placed Venetian Sun was doing her best work at the finish having found herself in a pocket for much of the race and is another exciting filly. The favourite Composing was obviously a disappointment, but she carried her head in an awkward position which may indicate something was amiss. I also thought the fifth-placed Skydance, trained by Willie McCreery, ran with merit. In five starts she has been placed in both a Group 2 and a Group 3 contest and now beaten less than four lengths in a Group 1 race. She is a certainty to lose her maiden tag at some stage. Lots of other notable performances across a high class weekend, but special mention must go to Karl Burke. He sent seven horses to Ireland last weekend and they finished 1,1,3,1,3,5,3 which is most impressive. Notable incidents from the weekend A few observations from the rest of the weekend's action worth mentioning: On Saturday at Leopardstown it was disappointing that the stewards didn't bother asking Stephen Thorne to explain the improvement in form of his winner Pink Oxalis compared to her run at the Curragh two weeks earlier, where she finished plum last. It is standard practice for the raceday stewards to go through the motions when a horse shows significant improvement from one run to the next, but it seems to have slipped their minds on this occasion. Perhaps it had something to do with it being the last of nine races on a busy day. The many punters who would have backed second favourite Light As Air in the Petingo handicap at Leopardstown have a right to feel a touch hard done by. Besides the fact that their impeded selection went down by just a head carrying 2lbs of overweight, their jockey didn't do their chances of a reversal in the steward's room any favours. It is worrying to read that there was another incident relating to a photographer in the wrong position at the finish of a major race. It appears that Delacroix jinked at the winning post in the Irish Champion Stakes when he spotted a photographer. There was a similar incident during the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh at the end of June when another Ballydoyle horse, Whirl, got somewhat startled by a photographer positioned too close to the action. Fortunately both incidents were minor, but it does look as if stricter protocols are called for.
