The Dublin Racing Festival starts tomorrow. It’s the eighth renewal and already there are growing hopes it might be getting close to becoming ‘a thing’.
That imprecise label applies to those fixtures able to exert a self-perpetuating loop of irresistible popular appeal. They become not so much race meetings as events.
Irish racing’s most famous example is the Galway Festival. It is as stamped on the national psyche as rain and Tayto. Even those allergic to the sport can’t ignore the Ballybrit brouhaha. People who don’t know a trifecta from a tractor turn up in their droves just to see and be seen at John B Keane’s famous state of mind.
That’s despite most of the racing being entirely unremarkable. The Galway Plate and the Galway Hurdle apart, most of the action veers little from run of the mill. But it continues to have a momentum of its own, underlining how redundant rhyme or reason can be when people decide what they like and dislike.
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The sport here has other ‘event’ fixtures. Easter Monday is synonymous with the Irish Grand National. Over the years some ropey Nationals could have been assembled for a fraction of the inflated prize-fund. But it’s an annual sure thing in terms of public appeal.
Leopardstown’s Christmas Festival is the same. So is Punchestown, Listowel too, even Gowran’s Thyestes. The Irish Derby isn’t. None of the Curragh classics are. Maybe it’s a flat racing prejudice, and maybe it isn’t. But the Dublin Racing Festival’s success is underlined by how the Irish Champions Festival on which it was modelled is still nowhere near being ‘a thing’.
The former Champions Weekend attracted an attendance of 18,870 between its two glittering cards at Leopardstown and the Curragh last September. That was 23 per cent down on the initial ICW a decade previously. Some of the best-quality horses in the world lined up and still the popular response was mostly indifference.
It makes for a marked contrast with the DRF. Launched in 2018 as a headline-grabbing concentration of the best Irish jumping talent just five weeks before Cheltenham, it has quickly established itself as a public draw.
A year ago, 36,000 crammed into Leopardstown over the two days. More than 20,000 on the Saturday alone meant an uncomfortable squeeze. The result is this weekend’s first ever all-ticket programme with daily capacity capped at 18,500. The DRF has prompted the near incredible concept of an Irish racecourse putting up ‘full house’ signs.
There are a lot of factors involved in this success. The concentration of local talent at a time of unprecedented Irish dominance just five weeks out from the ultimate festival date makes it supremely relevant. The DRF is no end game, but it establishes a vital pecking order for Cheltenham. However, it’s real USP is the numbers of British racing fans who attend.
Last year 38 per cent of the official attendance were cross-channel visitors. Saturday’s Ireland-England rugby international complicates things but ticket sales are still projected to be 30 per cent from Britain. That trumps the percentage of Irish racegoers going at Cheltenham. It certainly doesn’t happen at any other meeting here.
At least some of that is due to Cheltenham losing its way. If a weekend away to rip-off Dublin is a better financial deal than a few days in Gloucestershire it underlines how expensive the most famous meeting of all has become. British race fans are voting with their feet and the DRF is a clear winner because of it.
How sustainable it is though may ultimately come down to some of the same competitive issues that have affected Cheltenham. Labeling this weekend’s action as the Willie Mullins Racing Festival might be an easy dig but it’s hardly off the wall unfair either.
How can it be when Mullins boasts 47 winners in the DRF’s seven-year history, a massive 34 of them coming in the Grade One races. He won all eight top-flight races a year ago. The chances of a repeat were underlined earlier this week when he had almost half the total Grade One entries in all. Mullins is just 5/1 for another clean sweep of the top races.
Such dominance is remarkable to witness. There’s also the reality that if Mullins opted not to take on himself with numerical strength in depth, the DRF could look very hollow indeed. Another reality is that any consolation clung to by his rivals of it all slowing down anytime soon looks delusional. If anything, the sport’s dominant figure is getting even more supreme.
Fears that Aidan O’Brien would prove an overwhelming force in the Irish Champions Festival weren’t realised. But that was helped by having the best of an entire continent taking him on. Another paltry cross-channel challenge at the DRF underlines how Mullins is operating as a massive fish in a comparatively small local pool.
It remains to be seen how attractive a proposition that proves to be in taking this thing forward.
Something for the weekend
Majborough has long been the apple of Willie Mullins’s eye but his stable companion ILE ATLANTIQUE (2.55) could prove a better option in tomorrow’s Arkle. Paul Townend’s mount has looked a natural in two starts over fences and looks much more the finished product now than he did over hurdles.
Patrick Mullins is on Green Splendour in tomorrow’s big bumper, allowing Jody Townend to team up with SORTUDO (4.35). The free-running Tramore winner was beaten over Christmas although that was during a rare week when the Mullins team’s form dipped. Only a very decent mare beat him on that occasion, and he may prove significantly better than that performance suggests.
