ersg to sponsor Arkle at Dublin Racing Festival

Leopardstown Racecourse has announced that one of the feature races at the Dublin Racing Festival is to be sponsored by global recruitment specialist ersg.

The feature race on the first day of the festival - Saturday 1st February - will be known as The ersg Arkle Novice Steeplechase.

First run as a Grade One event in 2002, subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Kicking King was successful for trainer Tom Taaffe and Barry Geraghty just two years later.

Willie Mullins had won that inaugural running with the Ruby Walsh-ridden Assessed and he was also successful with Missed That, ridden by David Casey, in 2006 and the Paul Townend-ridden Golden Silver in 2009.

Mullins won the race with Un De Sceaux and Douvan, with Walsh in the saddle, in 2015 and 2016 respectively and was successful with the Footpad and Townend in 2018.

Jessica Harrington and Henry de Bromhead are the other trainers to have won the race on more than one occasion.

The Dublin Racing Festival features eight Grade One races. It will once again be increasing the prize funds for the races to a total of €2,125,000 over the weekend. All Grade One races will have a prize fund of €150,000 or more and the minimum level of prize money for any race is €100,000.

Vicki Donlon, Marketing & Sponsorship Manager at Leopardstown Racecourse, said: "We are delighted to welcome ersg as a partner at Leopardstown. It is through the support of our sponsors and Horse Racing Ireland that Dublin Racing Festival has established itself so prominently in the National Hunt calendar and that prize money can once again be raised.

"We hope that this will further strengthen the quality and breadth of the runners over the weekend. We are very grateful for ersg’s generous support and we look forward to making this a very successful partnership."

Jim Ryan, CEO of ersg, said: "Being Irish myself, I am personally delighted to be sponsoring the Dublin Racing Festival in Leopardstown.

"This is the third year ersg, as a business, have attended the festival and, following the announcement of our new office in Dublin in October, we felt this was the right time to show our support to the local area.”