Hurricane Fly parades before the big race© Photo Healy Racing
The Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has made his feelings known about a new Horse Racing Ireland board, pledging it will be "representative as well as functional" and agreeing with the Oireachtas Committee's view that voices from people at racing's everyday coalface should be heard more. Commendable stuff, heart-warming even: and then he goes just that bit too far - "This isn't an industry that should be run by the big guns." Aw, Simon.
Of course you're right. Just like Bambi shouldn't die, and all pints should automatically be on the house after ten o'clock. But if you're going to reach for the grandiloquent aspiration button, don't press so hard that people switch off.
'Should' has long been a contender for most-useless-word in the language, and using it in the context of who runs Irish racing is futile. Because the reality is everyone knows who will continue to run Irish racing and none of them are packing anything less than full-bore financial artillery.
Anyway, Simon told the Irish Field the much-delayed Horse Racing Ireland Amendment Bill is continuing its glacial progress with hopes to have it before the Dail by Easter, a necessary step before there's any chance at all of a plucky, agenda-free peashooter at the administrative tiller.
Experience though suggests deadlines in relation to anything to do with racing's administration or finances owe as much to well-meaning aspiration as the Minister's declaration that bringing a big gun to the shootout shouldn't be what counts.
And if you don't think that's the case, then explain how in the midst of a financial climate that has many trainers clinging to survival, not to mention a fundamentally scarred integrity environment, the Curragh can announce a fifty grand increase in prizemoney for this year's Leger and Phoenix Stakes, as well as a forty grand boost for the Tattersalls Gold Cup, hardly races that Joe Prole is likely to be targeting with any sort of howitzer.
Joe Prole's shot at a big National Hunt pot is betting more remote too, although when you look at a E110,000 prize-fund for the Irish Champion Hurdle, and factor in how there have already been a trio of six-figure handicaps in 2015, you'd wonder if prize-fund priorities over the jumps might be a little askew.
But Hurricane Fly's historic five-in-a-row put such considerations in the shadows. There's little more that can be said about this horse. He's a true great, the best hurdler this corner has seen, and his durability is simply remarkable. Even more remarkable is his will to win.
Yet again he looked to be in trouble for much of the race only to approach the straight with Jezki suddenly an ideal target rather than a likely victor. Jezki's last flight mistake made sure but he looked cooked anyway and it was wonderful to see such unabashed enthusiasm from the crowd towards a horse that has finally taken a grip on the game's heartstrings and gives no indication of letting go anytime soon.
Given his Cheltenham record though, and even his tendency to be 'off-it' over two miles these days, maybe serious consideration might be given to skipping the festival altogether and heading straight for Aintree over two and a half. No doubt Willie Mullins will turn his eyes to heaven at such an idea but training a 'public property' horse comes with the burden of having to put up with public theories sometimes, no matter how blasphemous.
But at the end of a remarkable Champion Hurdle day, why was there only an attendance of 8,216 to see history in the making by the most popular horse in training?
To be fair it's a near-nine hundred increase on 2014. But even so, a card featuring a supremely publicised head-to-head between Hurricane Fly and Jezki, not to mention a mouth-watering Arkle Chase, should surely be attracting at least a five-figure crowd in the context of our much-lauded obsession with jump racing.
National Hunt doesn't get much better than this yet 8,216 is less than half of what turned up on some of the days during the Christmas festival, and a lot less than the 13,190 that turned up for the first-leg of 'Champions Weekend' on the much-derided flat.
Maybe the Hennessy in a fortnight's time will be much better. There are four Grade 1's after all. It's also the last big trials day before Cheltenham. And while it mightn't be politic to say so, there might also be a possibility of a lot more freebie-tickets going around. Or is that an unworthy thought?
By then there might be a shake-up in terms of relaying timely close-circuit pictures to those who've gone to the trouble of actually going racing rather than sitting at home on the couch.
There was a pretty lengthy enquiry into the dead-head finish between Gladiator King and King Of Scars on Sunday but a first head-on replay coincided with the PA 'no alteration' announcement. In this finger-swiping technology age, that surely isn't good enough.
Not that exotic 'machine-that-goes-ping' technology is the be-all and end-all: something that those in charge of selling racing in Britain appear to be slowly comprehending now that years of fiddling around with big race dates, and grandiose 'morkoting' strategies, have resulted in a realisation that maybe things weren't so bad before after all: not perfect, you understand, but hardly rubbish enough to start messing around with perhaps the game's biggest selling point - tradition.
It may be hopelessly old-fashioned and non-digital, but races like the Middle Park and the July Cup carry a prestige and a history that those truly in thrall to the game relish. They mean little to those who aren't of course but no amount of self-aggrandising twisting and turning will switch on those who aren't disposed to be switched on in the first place. And the outcome in terms of race-planning now looks like a mess, reeking of uncertainty and a lack of confidence in the core product.
It's always worth remembering that nothing dates faster than trendy.
