Aidan O'Brien confident Auguste Rodin will bounce back in the Irish Champion Stakes
DOWNTIME: English & Irish Derby winner Auguste Rodin having a roll with groom Rachel Richardson after morning work at trainer Aidan O'Brien's County Tipperary base. Pic:Â Healy Racing
What’s in a name, one wonders? It is no longer Irish Champions Weekend, you know? It is the Irish Champions Festival. If, indeed, the original moniker was the inadvertent thumb in the dam which prevented the seemingly oblivious public from flooding the Leopardstown and Curragh venues with racegoers for the greatest weekend of Flat racing that this country can offer, then I doff my cap to the individual or committee with nuanced understanding of the public psyche to realise that was all that was required.
Of course, that’s not going to be the case, and if, in 2023, the seemingly oblivious public wakes up to what is a superb weekend of action, it will have been all the work being done behind the scenes. As one who has a slightly greater appreciation for Flat racing than jumps racing — though it can sway — it has long been a source of bemusement and frustration that the most mundane of National Hunt programmes will attract greater numbers than a considerably higher-class programme on the Flat.
