Irish Racing

[Xtc12]

After seeing the Irish horses dominate the Cheltenham Festival with 17 winners you have to ask the question of where have things gone wrong in GB or right in ireland.

Gordon Elliott retained his leading trainer’s title with eight winners over the four days, edging out his great rival Willie Mullins who finished with seven, meaning the pair accounted for all but 2 of the Irish-trained winners. Elliott’s tally matches the record number of winners set by Mullins in 2015. The 17 Irish-trained winners were spread across 11 different owners and four different trainers with Pat Kelly and Henry De Bromhead also training winners again this year. Half of the races (14) at this year’s Cheltenham Festival were won by Irish-bred horses.

For the third year running, Irish trainers captured six of the seven races on Thursday and fell just short of a clean sweep when taking second and third places behind the sole British-trained Missed Approach in the final event on the card.

Forward two weeks, to Fairyhouse Easter Festival. On April Fools Day we have the "Ryanair Gold Cup Novice Chase", 9 runners, 5 trained by Willie Mullins the other 4 trained by Gordon Elliott. Five of the nine runners are owned by two people. Is this good for racing, money keeping money or should there be a limit to the amount of runners a trainer/owner can have in a race. 

Forward to the 2nd April, Irish Grand National and Gordon Elliott has 13 runners in a 30 horse field, with Mullins having 4 so the two top trainers having 57% of the field. Add to this Michael O Leary had 10 entries. What some people would do for 270,000. 

Thoughts please.

Is the dominance of the above allowing them to buy all the good horses which improves the Irish chances at Cheltenham every year or is it ruining racing in general.

Like look at the demise of Paul Nicholls. 

[Alastair]

I don't follow jump racing in any degree of depth but isn't it the case that the three really big spenders on jump horses are Gigginstown Stud, Rich Ricci and JP McManus and the first two are exclusively based in Ireland and JP has a lot of his horses there.