A place for Laytown, Listowel & Champions Weekend in Irish Racing Calendar

This Champions Weekend at Leopardstown and Curragh on the 13th and 14th leaves me cold ,I have to say.

Yes we are getting all the hooplah, the glitz and glamour, all the money and all the spin.

But I am just not warming to the idea. From this angle its one enormous expensive party as the Irish racing authorities and elements within racing have been given their heads and run with it.

With entrance fees not an awful lot higher than any or our country tracks on an ordinary day,” they ” are really keen to fill both venues with people, anybody with a pulse in fact.

I’d imagine they are worried, particularly for the Curragh fixture, with the racing public finding it difficult to get enthused with racing at headquarters.

Yes you can list off all the Group 1 races on offer, the lucrative handicaps and all the side shows but if this whole circus is not critically reviewed after this year it looks like it is here to stay.

As I say it leaves me cold, even the talk of a Triple Crown between the French Arc weekend , the British Champions weekend and the Irish venture seems daft.

If someone can explain to me just how much racing will benefit from all of this please do tell!

When you contrast what is on offer over Champions weekend and today at Laytown the following week at Listowel , you get some idea as to how far apart our worlds are.

Maybe there is a place for all three but in my view the icy coldness that the Champions project engenders in me will be hard to thaw out!