Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown Stud team has proposed moving Leopardstown’s steeplechase course as a potential solution to continuing concerns about the state of the ground there.
Ahead of next month’s Dublin Racing Festival, the Ryanair boss’ brother and spokesman, Eddie O’Leary, even queried if some of the prestigious races up for grabs might be better switched to other tracks.
O'Leary's comments come on the back of unease expressed by the country's top trainers Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott about running some of their top horses at the prestigious festival which takes place on February 5th-6th.
With €2.1 million in prizemoney up for grabs over two days, and featuring eight Grade One races, the festival is one of the biggest dates of the racing year here, as well as a major trial for top Cheltenham hopes trained in Ireland.
However, the thorny issue of ground conditions getting too quick for jumpers, on Leopardstown’s chase course in particular, refuses to go away.
It arose again over the recent Christmas action when despite 45mm of rainfall immediately before the festival, watering still had to take place on the famously quick-draining surface before day two.
Regular watering of the steeplechase course has been taking place in recent months as part of an action plan to address the problem, which includes input from a specialist turf consultancy firm.
Leopardstown officials have insisted “appropriate” ground will be in place for National Hunt horses at the Dublin Racing Festival.
However, both Mullins and Elliott have indicated a readiness to skip the big dates if they feel the going is unsuitable.
That could provoke echoes of the 2019 meeting when 22 horses were taken out of the day two action alone due to the ground.
They included half a dozen defections from the Irish Gold Cup, reducing one of the most valuable contests of the season to a four-runner race.
Michael O’Leary criticised the lack of watering on that occasion and said there was “almost a horse welfare issue” involved.
Despite regular watering of the chase course since then it remains a “massive issue” according to Eddie O’Leary.
“They were very lucky the last day [Christmas] that they got two and a half inches of rain or else otherwise it would have been absolutely ruined again. They were lucky it made it safe,” he said.
“We’ve heard Willie talking. We’ve heard Gordon talking. The ground is a massive issue up there and I hope they can address it,” he added.
One step worth exploring, O’Leary believes, is moving the fences towards the inner from the wide outside.
“One suggestion could be to move the fences in: the configuration of the track at Christmastime, all the advertising hoardings were between the chase track and the hurdle track. Now, why can’t you have the chase track where the hoardings were?
“The ground was substantially better there than it was on the outside. They seem to want the chase track on the wide outside and it is firm ground [there] the whole time.
“They were lucky with the rain this year. But it’s taking two and a half inches in December,” he said.
“Hopefully they can provide safe ground, but they’d want to provide it. I don’t know what has happened. This is a relatively new phenomenon.
“Where I’m saying the chase track should be moved to is about a foot and a half lower than where the chase course is now. Have the flat track on the outside,” O’Leary added.
He also mooted that failure by Leoparstown to provide what he described as “safe” going for jumpers might see races run elsewhere.
“Is there not a question for the racing festival to be run between Naas and Punchestown or Navan? They are proper jumps tracks. If Leopardstown can’t provide safe ground why should it be Leopardstown?” O’Leary asked.
The Dublin Racing Festival concept was launched in 2018, the result of amalgamating the features from Leopardstown’s previous three best standalone fixtures and concentrating them into a single 24-hour period.
Gigginstown’s top chaser Delta Work landed the Paddy Power Irish Gold Cup in 2020 but has failed to score in six starts since.
He will have a shot at putting that right in the same race next month, while another O’Leary star who could possibly line up over fences is the Drinmore winner Beacon Edge.
He has the Flogas Novice Chase in his sights having recovered from a colic that ruled him out of Christmas.
“If he doesn’t go there then I don’t think there’s an alternative for him as he’d have a Grade One penalty in all those other novice chases,” reported Beacon Edge’s trainer Noel Meade
“I’d say if he doesn’t go to Leopardstown, he’d go straight to Cheltenham for the three-mile novice.”
In other news, Emmet Mullins’s Winter Fog was quickly made favourite by the sponsors for Saturday’s Coral Lanzarote Hurdle at Kempton after Monday’s acceptance stage.
Winter Fog was last seen finishing runner-up to Panda Boy in a Pertemps Qualifier at Leopardstown over Christmas.
The latest qualifier for the final of the Pertemps at Cheltenham in March could see major Irish interest at Warwick on Saturday.
Elliott has nine of the 19 entries left in and they include Sire Du Berlais who won back-to-back renewals of the final in 2019 and 2020.
Co Armagh-based Ronan McNally has also kept open the option of running both The Jam Man and Vee Dancer. The latter won three races in Britain last month when starting long odds-on every time.
