Ruby Walsh: Let's marvel at rather than envy the brilliance of our top trainers
STANDARD-SETTER: Willie Mullins enjoyed an incredibly successful Leopardstown Christmas festival to crown another sensational year. Pic: Inpho/Laszlo Geczo
Punchestown this afternoon will bring the curtain down on another racing year before all the madness of counting the hours, minutes, and seconds to midnight begin. Some people will look upon tomorrow as a fresh start, and others will be hoping for a change in fortune, but chances are when the clock strikes midnight, all will be the same.
When everyone heads to Fairyhouse or Tramore tomorrow, they will undoubtedly be in horse racing anyway. The wheels will turn relentlessly towards the spring National Hunt festivals as the juggernaut Irish racing has become gains steady momentum to steamroll through 2023 as it did in 2022. For some, the turn of the last millennium will seem like a lifetime ago. Still, less than a quarter of a way through this century, never mind millennium, National Hunt racing here is unrecognisable.
