Ruby Walsh: Curragh still has plenty of problems to overcome

Dropping the Irish Derby to 10 furlongs, making it more appealing for potential stallions, could be the way forward for the premier Classic.

the Curragh is feeling the heat as it prepares for its biggest race day, Irish Derby Day, and not from the sun but over the price of entry and poor attendance figures at the venue for the Guineas meeting. Picture: Inpho/Morgan Treacy

The Curragh and Newmarket, the perceived headquarters of Flat racing in Ireland and Britain, are both awash with negative conversation as Irish Derby Day dawns.

John and Thady Gosden have runners at Newmarket this afternoon, but Frankie Dettori, their stable jockey, doesn’t ride any of them.

And last night it was revealed that the pair have agreed to “take a sabbatical” from their association.

Royal Ascot didn’t go to plan for the trio, and one assumes that is the root of the issue.

They had a pretty public spat after Stradivarius’s defeat in the Ascot Gold Cup, and the following day John Gosden was still publicly critical of Frankie. Jockeys are human, and one below-par ride ordinarily wouldn’t lose someone their job. At least they have agreed to take a sabbatical by mutual consent so all is not lost for Frankie.

Here, the Curragh is feeling the heat as it prepares for its biggest race day, Irish Derby Day, and not from the sun but over the price of entry and poor attendance figures at the venue for the Guineas meeting.

When one does the economics of inflation over 20 years, the Curragh is well behind where it could be on price, but perhaps the other way of looking at that is maybe it was overpriced 20 years ago.

The other option could be to look at what you are paying to see and, unfortunately for the Curragh, without Epsom Derby winner Desert Crown or Prix du Jockey Club winner Vadeni, you are not paying in to see the Derby winners compete or clash.

That was the golden nugget the Irish Derby once was, but since the French dropped their equivalent to 10 furlongs, a clash of the English and French winners on the Curragh plains has evaporated. Perhaps it was gone before they did that, but now it is extinct, and when the Epsom hero fails to show at the Curragh, it leaves a feeling of emptiness.

I know we have the Oaks winner, and both Salsabil and Balanchine were great Oaks winners to conquer the Irish Derby. Still, neither looked slightly lucky at Epsom, as Tuesday did when beating Emily Upjohn, and both came to the Curragh as massive attractions.

They had been scintillating at Epsom, and that is the difference: People wanted to go and see them. Perhaps Tuesday will be a superstar, but right now she is an Oaks winner who was beaten in both the Irish and English 1000 Guineas.

A different marketing model, a la Honeysuckle, is an unbeaten filly or winner of those three races. Whatever you feel about the Curragh and its redevelopment, it doesn’t have a superstar to hang its hat on before the off. Even the unlucky Epsom Derby third, Westover, is not a star draw yet.

Nobody woke up the Monday after Epsom and Chantilly and thought ‘I can’t wait to see Tuesday meeting Westover at the Curragh!’ That’s the reality of what the Curragh is selling today, and when you are on the backfoot as the redeveloped Curragh is, you need a better break than this.

That raises the question of what the Curragh needs to do to reinvigorate, firstly, the Irish Derby, and secondly, the meeting as a whole. Dropping the Irish Derby to 10 furlongs, making it more appealing for potential stallions, looks like the obvious answer but is possibly too simple a solution.

Ireland prides itself as a world leader in breeding, but If we keep going shorter and breeding speedier horses, eventually we will end up with three-furlong races. Perhaps that’s what the market wants, but tradition, if valued, will go with it.

The smallest field sizes are now in the middle-to-long-distance Flat races, so perhaps the prize money and program must be tilted back in favour of those horses, making them more lucrative to owners.

That would be a slow process, but to keep stamina in pedigrees these horses need to be worth breeding, and the lure of speed needs to be somehow altered back to stamina - or at least to parity.

That’s an issue for sharper and more learned minds than mine but changing The Curragh’s recent fortunes might be more manageable.

The wonderful social occasion it was is in decline. As a Kildare man, I want the M7 at a standstill between Naas and Monasterevin, not because of commuters or Kildare Village but for the Irish Derby.

I remember going via the back roads west of Newbridge to avoid traffic on Derby Day, and those delays and detours added to the enormity of who was going.

People like atmosphere and seeing others enjoying themselves makes people want to be there. Seeing is believing, and if it means renting a crowd, the Curragh has to buck the trend of a quiet, empty enclosure.

I know the Curragh is a business and needs to be profitable, but it’s also a vast area, and filling the infield and perimeter with cars of people looking for a day out can only add to the atmosphere.

Epsom does it, but so do Uttoxeter, Worcester, and Cartmel, to name a few. People need to feel wanted, but they also have to cut their cloth to measure, and a cheaper option would surely encourage more.

There needs to be cheap seats. The main enclosure has a capacity, but the ambition should be greater. It costs more to sit on the halfway line than stand on the terrace, more to be on a premium level and even more for a box in every stadium, but inclusion is vital.

From last night to tomorrow evening, the Curragh has the venue and the best of jockeys and trainers. The product needs tweaking, and then it just needs to convince the public somehow to come.