Dan McDonnell

foreign here in that foot now in saying that i could accept the point that there maybe would have been maybe you know at the end of the point just 10 weeks like well willie mullins again has done this or done that and maybe it does but i wouldn't lean too much on the attendance figures because i mean i go racing a lot of the festival crowd are there to have a good time in the same way that people are going to a concert but not necessarily going there because they are avid fans of race like student race days are some of the best attended yeah

race you know sporting events in the country but like most people don't have a clue what's happening so it's not you can't really equate that to someone going to watch Bose and Sligo although I mean you might have a lot of ground hoppers and people with Bose jerseys you could maybe say the same The grey hand grey hand racing had a big moment there maybe Celtic Tiger people would go along but people weren't there for the race and really they weren't there for the piss up

It's just culture.

It's very hard to explain.

It's just what is our culture.

Like it used to be, certainly the thing that used to be the logic was that, again, you know, there was an affordability issue that anyone could own a top jumps horse like a Ginoli or you could have these stories like Tom Foley, like the farmer can have a, you know, a Chatelaine winner.

weirdly that doesn't really happen now you have the super trainers now you'll have the odd story that pops up and i say this as someone who's owned many horses ironically enough owning a horse on the flat now is a lot more affordable probably a lot less of a risk because generally you can buy a fat horse that can run a lot that's often ready quite quickly you can buy a jump horse where the prices now have gone through the roof even to buy an

normal people have been sort of priced out of the market but still I think there's just a cultural thing that people still enjoy going to watch the thrills and spills of a of a jumps event and it's more embedded in the calendar embedded in how we spend our years it's Leopardstown it's it's Punchestown it's the Nationals it's the Gold Cups it's the concept of the horses coming back year on year you would have these favourites like to mention you know like Bob Olinger was retired the other day like a what age?

who was 12, 12, or 11, or maybe 11, maybe 11.

But Bob Oliver has been around for like six, seven years.

So the race goers will actually have a real affection for Bob.

The flat horses aren't around for as long, but it used to be, it used to be a lot easier to explain that because there would have been a real economic aspect of the blue bloods, you'd have all the royalty in the flat.

And, you know, the, the,

You have the royalty.

I mean, you've got like, you know, that sort of voice of the common man, Rich Ritchie, like winning a Chatham, like the Gold Cup and the Grand National Double.

It's not quite, you can't really sell those stories anymore, but it's just the feeling that the event is a bit more.

But weirdly, if people ever want to get into racing ownership, and I will do it again, I'm on an extended break at the moment, but the most economic way to do it is to get involved with a flat horse.

And that you probably, you could actually get a cheap flat horse

that could be a flat handicapper that could probably bring you to some of the big festival days and some of the sort of... Even when we owned a horse, we got to the Curragh a couple of times.

We had a winner at the Curragh, you know, which was an amazing experience.