Ruby Walsh: We are gimmicking up a festival when a carnival is required
RACING ROYALTY AT DOWN ROYAL: Down Royal groundsman Kelvin Eastwood gets a selfie during Frankie Dettori’s visit to the track. Pic: Healy Racing
Why? I don’t know, perhaps because it couldn’t be abbreviated to give it a catchy name, but apparently, the word “festival” makes people feel better about an occasion, even if it’s still the same gig.
However, the bigger question is why those in charge feel it needs to be reinvented after just nine runnings. After all, it is two days of top-class horseracing run at two venues 35 miles apart.
Maybe ICF rolls off the tongue better than CWF, but changing the name doesn’t iron out the flaws of this weekend. Two venues and, for a sport so many tell me is international, there are no non-European runners.
The venue flaw will never change, but I can’t help but feel that the rebranding costs could have been better spent by attracting a few runners from the Far East or even the West and giving a global audience a reason to watch the ICF and consequently, perhaps, contemplate coming here in the future.
Looking at the success of the Dublin Racing Festival and believing the word “festival” makes those two days in Dublin the hit it is is laughable. The DRF will prosper because of the quality horses on show and the attraction of National Hunt racing to us and our nearest neighbour.
National Hunt racing doesn’t have the global competition or appeal Flat racing has, yet we are still stuck trying to attract locals who don’t want to come instead of pursuing what international competitors might attract.
Europe has the perfect program from York in August to here in September on to Paris early next month to make itself the place to be, but individual thinking instead of collective minds are robbing this part of the world of global horse racing headlines, fans and attention.
We are gimmicking up a festival when a carnival is required. Perhaps Frankie being in town will save the day, but he won’t be here next year, and these two days need all the best, not just a few of them, to compete, but like York, having no non-European runner is not a step in the right direction.
This is, after all, a massive global commercial industry, but its appeal as a worldwide sport does not match its commercial worth. Many believe it is promoted wrongly, but if one more genius tells me we need a ‘Drive To Survive’-type program to create interest in racing, I might clock them.
Formula One has a global race series in which the best compete. All the best who chase an oval ball are in France for the World Cup, but even if you look at golf (the other sport that will impact the racing this weekend) it has over 50,000 professionals and yet three elite tours make it a global success story.
It’s the collective entities other sports have to make the elite clash which ensures they are international sports. Racing lacks that because even this weekend we are clashing with the same level races at Haydock and Longchamp, never mind internationally.
It seems to be the only sport where you never know who the best on the planet ever is because they are never likely to meet. Changing names is window dressing; radical thinking is required.
The show we do have starts at 1:45pm Saturday afternoon and Natalia Lupini could make it a slow start for the Goliaths, with Kitty Rose the selection to strike first for the minnows. It won’t take long for the giants to get moving, and Diego Velazquez will be a warm order to land the second, but like many races with short-priced favourites this weekend, there could be each-way value lurking in the field, and Deepone makes that appeal in this race.
Without Inspiral taking her on, I cannot see beyond Tahiyra in the Matron Stakes, and that leads us to the feature, the Irish Champion Stakes. Auguste Rodin is on a retrieval mission, King Of Steel is trying to prove he can win a Group 1, and likewise Alfaila.
Luxembourg will be trying to defend his crown, and Nashwa hopes this is easier than trying to beat Paddington and Mostahdaf, who, along with Ace Impact, are the trio missing from this contest.
Sprewell and Point Lonsdale have plenty to prove, but maybe Al Riffa, with connections opting for the experience of Christophe Soumillon over the future star Dylan Browne McMonagle - could be the answer. Maybe he is, but I prefer the French raider Onesto, who can give Frankie Dettori another perfect final day on his global retirement tour.
Victoria Road and Adelaide River can round the Group action out in winning style for Aidan O’Brien and Ryan Moore before the handicaps begin and attention moves to the Curragh.
Sunday’s card has a similar mix of handicaps but double the Group 1s, and the strength of the Ballydoyle two-year crop will flex its muscles with Ylang Ylang in the Moyglare and City Of Troy in the National Stakes.
The Flying Five will be a British showdown on Irish turf, but I slightly favour Bradsell over Highfield Princess. The final Irish Classic, the St Leger, is due off at 4.35pm, and the winner of last season’s final British Classic, Eldar Eldarov, can regain the winning thread on a surface he might prefer more than his opposition.
Nudges in the handicap direction would push me to Nusret at 5.05pm and Kayhana at 5.40pm Saturday afternoon, and Albasheer at 1.50pm and Kingswood at 5.45pm on Sunday.
All said, 16 winners will have been found by six o’clock Sunday evening, but how much of a winner ICF is will be judged on how it fares against Andy Farrell’s men in France, the Irish at the K Club, when the papers come out Monday, the viewing figures are released Tuesday, the World Pool and streams are totaled, and how many people walk through the gates Saturday and Sunday. The opposition is formidable.
