Economics getting the better of Auguste Rodin at Leopardstown© Photo Healy Racing
The Irish Champions Festival once again lived up the billing with some enthralling contests and brilliant winners across the weekend.
With less than three lengths separating the first seven horses home in the Irish Champion Stakes, it might normally suggest a muddling affair with no star performance, but Saturday’s race felt different.
A strong pace produced a quick time and despite the bunch finish many of the runners managed to enhance their reputations. Economics showed tremendous battling qualities to get the verdict over the admirable and vastly more experienced Auguste Rodin. The Japanese raider Shin Emperor did his Prix de l’Arc aspirations no harm with a luckless third place finish, while Los Angeles possibly produced a career best in fourth over a distance short of his optimum.
Los Angeles and Ghostwriter finishing hot on the heels of the first three indicates that City Of Troy would certainly have been in the mix if he had turned up. Economics and City Of Troy are unlikely to ever meet, which makes it rather subjective as to which one is the best of their generation, but Saturday’s result would indicate there is not a lot between them.
Porta Fortuna’s victory in the Matron Stakes must cement her position as the top three-year-old filly of the season with her unblemished record since a narrow defeat in the Newmarket Guineas back in May.
It was certainly a memorable weekend for the husband and wife duo of Tom Marquand (won both Group One’s on Saturday) and Hollie Doyle (first female rider to win a Group One on Irish soil when landing Sunday’s Flying Five).
Bradsell’s Flying Five win confirmed, if we didn’t already know it, that the British sprinters are on a different level to their Irish counterparts. The first six placings filled by British-trained runners in the big sprint topped off a lucrative weekend for horses trained by our nearest neighbours.
All told there were 34 British-trained raiders and 22 of them headed home with prize money. In total they scooped up an impressive €1.5 million, which equates to just over one third of the prize money on offer across the weekend.
Aidan O’Brien’s runners managed to bring back just shy of €1 million in prize money from the three-day Doncaster St Leger meeting, so it wasn’t all one way traffic last week.
Considering the level of competition and the prize money on offer at the Irish Champions Festival it was reassuring to see the stewards having a relatively quiet couple of days. James Doyle, who picked up a two-day ban for excessive use of the whip, was the only rider sanctioned across the 17 races over the weekend.
With five favourites obliging on Saturday it looked like the bookies were in for a bit of a pasting, but they managed to win the argument on Sunday with only two of the eight favourites scoring at the Curragh. That said, there were no major shocks across the two days with 12/1 the biggest SP return for any winning horse.
Comparing this year’s Dublin Racing Festival betting markets to the Irish Champions Festival it is interesting that there were 8 odds-on chances across the 15 races of the jumping equivalent in February, as opposed to just 5 odds-on chances out of the 17 races last weekend.
Once again, giving the trainers and owners of two-year-old colts two very similar races to choose from across the weekend backfired on the organisers with only four horses opting to run in the Group Two Juvenile Stakes on Saturday.
This is the third year in a row that this Leopardstown race hasn’t had enough runners to offer standard each-way betting terms to punters, which will not have gone down well with the Tote Worldpool people who are stumping up big money in Media Rights payments to showcase the Festival.
Keeping both the National Stakes and the Juvenile Stakes on the weekend roster certainly suits Coolmore Stud connections who have the luxury of being able to split their aces on Ireland’s biggest two days of Flat racing.
It will be fascinating to see whether it is Coolmore or Worldpool that wins that particular arm wrestle by the time Irish Champions Festival 2025 comes around.
One of the big takeaways from Irish Champions weekend is how global horse racing has become. Almost every big race contender at Leopardstown and the Curragh will now have their attention switched to another major international contest. It barely raises an eyebrow these days when we hear connections talk of heading to the Breeders Cup, Prix de l'arc, or even Japan Cup and Melbourne Cup. Perhaps in another few years we will see regular visitors from those countries competing in our top races too.
