The countdown to Longines Irish Champions Weekend is on in earnest although Curragh officials are reluctant to predict attendance levels for their second-leg of flat racing’s showpiece event this Sunday.
Leopardstown has the featured €1 million Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes on Saturday but the Curragh boasts four of the six Group One prizes up for grabs in this weekend’s €3.9 million extravaganza.
The €500,000 Comer Group International Irish St Leger will be the focal point at HQ which was redeveloped at a cost of over €81 million and opened in 2019 to cater for big occasions such as Champions Weekend.
An official attendance of just over 10,000 was at that 2019 meeting which featured the Pat Smullen race-day in aid of cancer research. The Covid-19 pandemic meant racing was behind closed doors in 2020 while there was a restriction of 4,000 people in operation last year.
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With all restrictions lifted in 2022, Curragh management are hoping to make the most of an uninterrupted run-up to the ninth renewal of Champions Weekend.
“We’ve got a lot of race meetings under our belt and it’s been good. We have got used to the place and the people have got used to the place which is great,” said the Curragh’s CEO Brian Kavanagh who will be in charge for the first time at Champions Weekend.
The former long-reigning boss of Horse Racing Ireland, who is also on the Champions Weekend organising committee, returned an official attendance of 11,300 in June for the Curragh’s other big date of the season, the Irish Derby.
Asked whether that figure could be matched this weekend, particularly in the context of growing cost of living problems, he commented: “It’s hard to say. It’s very good racing. Ticket sales are tipping along nicely but I wouldn’t put a number on it in terms of expectations.
“It depends too on what the weather does during the week. I think the forecast is for good weather at the weekend which would be great. We’re really looking forward to it and it looks like we will get some really interesting declarations at tomorrow’s forfeits. It looks very strong.”
General admission on the day at the Curragh is priced at €40. However cheaper prices are available by booking online before that. The same general admission price at Leopardstown is €35 with concessions also offered prior to Saturday.
An overall total of 23,508 attended Irish flat racing’s shop-window event in 2019.
Torrential weekend rain has put a definitive end to summer conditions but the 58mms that fell on the Curragh was welcome according to Kavanagh.
“The one thing I’d say about the ground, from our point of view, we needed the rain. We got a lot of it, but the ground is still good on the round track,” he said.
Leopardstown got even more with 66mms over the weekend and up to 10mms more forecast into tomorrow. It has left the ground at the Dublin course as officially yielding and good to yielding in places.
It remains to be seen whether that has an influence on running plans ahead of Tuesday’s vital confirmation stage for both meetings.
French star Vadeni is a warm favourite for the Champion Stakes while Aidan O’Brien’s Kyprios is odds-on with some firms for Sunday’s Leger despite outside hopes of the English staying star Stradivarius being supplemented on Tuesday at a cost of €50,000.
One home-based star definitely in the weekend reckoning is Ado McGuinness’ dual-Group One-winning sprinter A Case Of You who will try to go one better than last year in Sunday’s Al Basti Flying Five.
Runner-up to Romantic Proposal in the race 12 months ago, A Case Of You subsequently scored at the top-level in both the Prix du l’Abbaye at Longchamp and the Al Quox in Dubai.
However, he disappointed in June’s Platinum Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot and hasn’t been seen in action since then.
“The horse wasn’t right. We did a few tests on him and he was recovering from a virus after it. He must have picked up something. Where I don’t know, but we gave him a good break.
“He’s fine now, he’s in great form and looks a million dollars. The fact he hasn’t run since Ascot doesn’t concern me. If he was a three-mile chaser it might do but he’s a five furlong sprinter. He’s got to run for 57 or 58 seconds so it’s not too bad,” McGuinness reported on Monday.
A Case Of You is a 10-1 in some ante-post lists for the Flying Five. The four year old started a 33-1 outsider for the same race in 2021, running half a length shy of Romantic Proposal who could again line up against him at the weekend.
