The Game No One's Allowed Not Play

Talk of tariffs is rampant at the moment and it's easy to suspect a duty on hyperbole during this weekend's Dublin Racing Festival might generate a considerable yield. Last year's inaugural re-jig of the winter programme was uniformly acclaimed as a huge success. Novelty alone seemed to generate giddy excitement. But the event is up and running now and despite the cheer-leading it is reasonable to ask what actually constitutes success for the Dublin Racing Festival.

If it is to be judged in terms of Ruby Walsh's attendance criteria - "You fill the place, simple as that" - then last year's overall crowd of 26,136 came up short. Contrary to expectations, Day One produced a bigger attendance of 14,105. That's healthy by most standards, and notable for being on the same day as Ireland played France at rugby in Paris. But it's still some way short of a full house.

This time rugby competition is just down the road in Lansdowne with probably the most eagerly anticipated international clash of all between Ireland and England. Leopardstown officials are anticipating quite a few cross-channel visitors without tickets for the rugby will choose to go racing and watch the game there.

However the festival's brief includes helping to boost the sport's profile beyond its usual confines, and in Dublin in particular. It is designed to showcase racing's best to a broad general public swamped with sporting choice. Except there's little or no choice this weekend: like it or not rugby will be the overwhelming game in town.

In fairness almost any other event would have to settle for the sidelines compared to an Ireland-England international, given the success of the national side and the tide of public support accompanying that. Taking that into account it makes an argument for the past weekend's relatively underwhelming sporting fare to be a better opportunity for racing to grab the spotlight look more convincing.

The effort and commitment that has gone into creating this festival from a logistical point of view is reflected in a €1.8 million prizemoney pot over the two days. Prior to the creation of the Dublin Racing Festival the equivalent 15 races were worth a million between them. It's hardly a coincidence then that more cross-channel based horses are likely to take part this weekend.

The festival's perspective has inevitably to be taken in the context of Cheltenham six weeks later. This year it could be the case even more. The unusual ground conditions that have reigned here for much of the winter mean this weekend's action may have even more significance in identifying true top-notch Cheltenham prospects. In an ideal world that's part of the festival's brief too.

Circumstances have conspired but in such a context there's still no avoiding a sense of Hamlet without the Prince about a Unibet Irish Gold Cup that doesn't have Ireland's premier Cheltenham Gold Cup contender, Presenting Percy. To a lesser extent the same could be said if Ireland's apparently best Champion Hurdle hope, Laurina, doesn't line up in the Irish Champion.

That all underlines just how Irish racing's most important meeting of the year takes place in Gloucestershire in March. Nothing else comes close.

The old saying about no fishmonger ever getting rich by shouting 'stale fish for sale' always holds true. But flinging hyperbole at the Dublin Racing Festival isn't going to change its status as basically a hugely lucrative Cheltenham Trials weekend. However else it is to be judged, it will still be fascinating to see how successful it ultimately is even by that gauge alone.

Yet again a feature of the festival's push is how prominent everything bar the actual racing is. Visitors are loudly promised culture, fashion, food, 'slebs' and even Vogue Williams, with some horses and jockeys providing a bit of background colour. And it's mostly harmless, if a tacit admission that racing isn't enough of a draw in itself to get enough civilians to actually go racing.

That's why there was a feel-good factor to Gowran's Thyestes fixture which drew a significant crowd mainly on the back of Presenting Percy's return to action. The enthusiasm for the Gold Cup favourite was apparently palpable. Why some horses generate public appeal and others don't is something of a mystery but a lot of people have clearly latched on to Presenting Percy which is refreshing.

Perhaps some of that is due to a perceived underdog status. Such status probably says quite a lot about how skewed so much of elite National Hunt racing is towards billionaire owners like Michael O'Leary and JP McManus, and a handful of top trainers including Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott in particular.

Presenting Percy is after all owned by a wealthy businessman, Philip Reynolds, who also happens to be a son of a former Taoiseach. That's pretty establishment stuff by any standard. For his part Pat Kelly long adopted a wary attitude to media coverage even before getting fined last year after a point to point winner he trained returned a positive cobalt test.

As a package it's some way removed from classic underdog narratives of the past such as surrounded Danoli and Imperial Call. Yet there is clearly enormous goodwill towards this horse, something that reflects perhaps public hunger for variety as much as anything else.

But while we're on this subject, the matter of Kelly's reluctance to play the media game is generating more and more comment. One firm, with its usual restraint, has even introduced a market about whether or not the trainer will do a TV interview should Presenting Percy win the Gold Cup in March.

Apparently it's a bit of fun. Maybe it is too, for some, even if for others there's an undertow that doesn't feel right, something of the game no one's allowed not play.

Kelly has no duty to racing to do interviews with anyone. If he chooses to then good for him, and maybe even good for racing overall. But a person doesn't forfeit the right to choose to talk to whoever they damn well want just because of an increased public profile.

Covering sport is ideally supposed to be a pursuit of the authentic. Two genuinely felt words, even if the second of them is 'off,' are still ultimately better than torrents of smoothly expressed hokum often notable only for its fluency and pursuit of self-serving attention.

The Referrals Committee panel chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Joseph Finnegan got it right when it dismissed the appeal of amateur jockey Aubrey McMahon against a five day ban imposed under 'Non-Trier' rules at Tramore on New Year's Day. After reserving judgement for a week the panel's conclusion ultimately did what Rule 212 required them to do.

They concluded McMahon had not deliberately prevented the Ted Walsh trained Batcio from running on its merits but were not satisfied a reasonable and well informed member of the racing public wouldn't have arrived at the same view as the stewards. In the circumstances such a conclusion is far from contradictory.

A significant and potentially far-reaching element to the appeal was McMahon's attempt to introduce evidence by a chartered accountant as, presumably, representative of just such a reasonable and well-informed member of the racing public. It was no surprise the panel decided not to receive such evidence.

That's because precisely defining what is a reasonable and well informed member of the racing public is all but impossible. The phrase is an unspecific device with a specific purpose to allow officials an avenue into running and riding cases which in the past often descended into near-farcical attempts to prove intent to court-room standard.

Had the appeals panel not ruled as they did, and judged the process as they did, there would have been serious implications for the implementation of running and riding rules overall.

Finally, Barry Geraghty's achievement in passing out Richard Dunwoody on the all-time list of jockeys in Ireland and Britain is a notable milestone. Geraghty's has been one of the great racing careers, indeed one of the great careers in Irish sport. That the rider has managed it while maintaining an appealing public poise often lacking in some of his contemporaries only adds to the tale.

There are those who insist Geraghty's peak is in the past. That's perhaps the inevitable lot for a jump jockey in his fortieth year. His great rival Ruby Walsh gets the same. But the generosity with which Geraghty has paid tribute to Dunwoody testifies to someone whose enthusiasm for the hardest game of all is undimmed. And don't forget Richard Johnson is 42 and on the road longer!