Australia© Photo Healy Racing
Since Australia is set to run at York this week it might be presumptuous to look three weeks further ahead and already label him the ‘Irish Champions Weekend’ lynchpin but no amount of PR flim-flam can disguise how so much of the industry’s new shop-window strategy could ultimately revolve around Aidan O’Brien’s colt. Actually, Australia and the weather: and since this is Ireland, pinning hopes on a horse is a far more reliable move than banking on the Met Office.
There has been much talk about how the Champions Weekend will fit into the Pattern alongside the Arc and Champions Day in Britain, even hopes that ultimately there could be Triple Crown talk that will be realistic rather than aspiration or just plain sentiment. And anything that attracts focus to the sport’s elite for positive reasons is obviously welcome.
Such long-term predictions though look ambitious, and might appear a lot more so if ‘Champions Weekend’ doesn’t get off to a short-term flier. And a flier requires the sort of star quality that of all the horses likely to turn up at Leopardstown and the Curragh only Australia looks capable of possessing. So with a lot of official hopes invested in the new strategy a lot of official palms are likely to get very sweaty come 3.40 on Wednesday.
Maybe Australia will bury everything else by ten lengths and indicate to everyone else the level of ability that he’s clearly being showing everyone at Ballydoyle. That might sound harsh about a double-Derby winner but while clearly top-class, the colt really still has to live up to the stratospheric levels of hype that have swirled around his head for almost a year now. For everyone pinning their hopes on September 13-14 though it could be vital that he doesn’t put a foot wrong at York.
Hindsight just reinforces the massive plus Britain’s ‘Champions Day’ initiative enjoyed with its coincidence to Frankel and the first two years of its existence. Frankel was a banner-name the first year and sporting history the next. The credibility the fixture got from the appearance of the great horse’s appearance was incalculable, enough even to still allow a reasonably robust defence against suspicions that European racing’s ultimate natural rhythm continues to beat, and will always beat, a remorseless drum towards Paris and the first weekend in October.
Trying to elbow ‘Irish Champions Weekend’ into a credible place alongside Longchamp in particular is a huge ask, one that requires a major name to help push it, and with all the best will in the world, Australia looks the only contender. Since this corner was pushing for a crap-or-bust shop-window event a number of years ago, such scepticism might sound rich now, but there’s no point sticking one’s head in a bucket of press-release puff either.
Of the top twenty placed horses in the World Thoroughbred Rankings, Australia currently just about squeezes in with a mark comparable to Telescope, Cirrus Des Aigles, Magician and African Story, a fine quartet, but hardly in the stardust league. This year’s top-ranked, Japan’s Just Away, won’t be lining up. Neither will Kingman or Sea The Moon or Treve. The Fugue is retired. Taghrooda must be highly unlikely to take in Ireland before the Arc. The top American dirt horses California Chrome or Game On Dude aren’t in the equation so with the best will in the world, it’s hardly possible to sell Ireland’s big weekend as some ultimate equine Olympics.
That isn’t to suggest a two-day event with a handful of Group 1’s isn’t something to savour. But for racing here to break out of its natural interior into the wide open space of the general public’s sporting consciousness then something more is required.
Of course a convincing argument can be made that any such breakouts are by their nature temporary. People have a habit of deciding for themselves what they like and racing is by definition something you either relish or loathe with very little apparent middle-ground.
But whatever your attitude to the hype around him, Australia is a ‘buzz’ horse, the best Aidan O’Brien has ever had apparently, and maybe he will go to ‘Champions Weekend’ on the back of a wondrous York performance. Plenty will hope he does. Take him out and alternative headline-acts start to look desperately scarce, maybe coming down to a curio option in the shape of Estimate carrying the Queen’s colours at the Curragh. And then again, everything could be academic if it starts tipping down. Never forget how close it came to Sea The Stars skipping the Champion Stakes in 2009 because of the ground, and even then just 9,500 showed up to watch him. That really was an eye-opener of a day when it came to how irrelevant the quality of the action out on the track is to how many pay through the turnstiles.
‘Champions Weekend’ is an honourable and worthy attempt to buck that system. Only the truly begrudging will dismiss such an attempt as futile even before it happens. There’s also a five-year element to the concept. But the importance of a good-start is known better within racing than most anywhere else. First impressions count. And you never know, a supplementary surprise may still lie in store. But right now, Australia is carrying a lot more on his back than Joseph O’Brien’s postage-stamp saddle.
Happily no headlines appear necessary after Karen Kenny’s dramatic Tramore spill with the jockey reportedly recovering well after what looked initially like a potentially significant head injury. What’s immensely impressive though is the timescale of treatment once the air ambulance was called to the incident. Twenty five minutes to get there, ten minutes to get the jockey on board and fifteen minutes to hospital: Tramore to Cork within an hour.
Such speed wasn’t vital on this occasion. The sad reality though is that it’s only a matter of time before it will be.
