Ruby Walsh: Porter can floor Kerry National rivals 

A four-time Grade One winner heads the field, and a Brown Advisory winner follows. Next in is a dual Stayers' Hurdle winner, the Galway Plate second and third, and the last two winners of this race jump off the page as familiar names that mean a race of excitement, quality, and thrills.

That excludes Perceval Legallois, so unlucky is last season's Leopardstown Chase, Solitary Man, and the Leopardstown Chase winner of 2023, The Goffer.

The quality here means that a horse of Real Steel’s calibre is only a reserve, but these are names people want to see; these are the horses people learn to follow and enjoy, and it is races like the Kerry National that could get racing onto the front page of a national newspaper tomorrow.

The more I look at it, though, the more I feel Flooring Porter ticks every box. He races handily, likes going left-handed and is potentially well-handicapped over fences compared to his hurdle standard. Listowel does take jumping, but the fences are stiff rather than tall, which should him, and I think he is the class act in the contest, capable of flooring the opposition.

Earlier on the card, Gaucher will love going left-handed, too, as his tendency to jump left snookered him at Galway, where he gave away oceans of ground. The extra furlong Eastmore has today in the 3.10pm could be enough to get his head front.

Donkey Years can roll back the years in the 3.45pm — and he will need to as it is over two years since he won a race. His trainer, Eric McNamara, rarely leaves Listowel without a winner, and this fellow loves extreme distances. Pink In The Park bolted in here back in 2021 when making a winning racecourse debut, but slow ground is a valid excuse for her run here last year, and the dry September we have had should play to her strengths in the 4.52pm.

The Liam Healy Memorial Lartigue Hurdle is the feature on Thursday afternoon. Pinot Gris's solid Galway run on the Flat makes him look like an improver and one to be with for Flooring Porter's trainer, Gavin Cromwell, and the blowout Good Time Jonny had on the Flat earlier this month at Roscommon should have left him spot on for the beginners’ chase at 5.10pm.

Ryan Moore was due in North Kerry yesterday and unlike Frankie Dettori's ‘Will I? Won’t I?’ Non-appearance last year, Ryan was in town because his job brought him there. He didn’t delay figuring out how to ride Listowel and bagged the first winner aboard Thrice as the drizzle descended on a small-looking crowd.

Hollie Doyle’s job requirements brought her to Fairyhouse on Monday, too, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out how the powers that be are making up the fixture list. Two Flat cards last Saturday and a pair of the same on Monday seem to be a trend nowadays, with both codes having clashing race meetings more frequently. The regular clashes of racing meetings of the one discipline, the overload of the fixture list and the slow drop in quality are dragging the sport down.

Prize funds are under pressure as the pie is sliced into more pieces, and the ominous development of Tipperary is on the horizon. Such an investment won't survive without the allotment of more fixtures, but where will the prize money come from? Where will the horses come from?

‘Build it and they will come’ seems to be the motto, but that will have a cost, and the race to the bottom is gaining speed.

Creating opportunities for everyone to be a winner is a lovely idea, but the reality is that that dilutes the quality and when the quality slips, so too does the interest. We are on a slow, slippery slope. Take 2013, where September had 29 race meetings, compared to 2023, where it had 43, and one doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why, all too often, our sport feels repetitive and stale.

Once upon a time, Listowel stood independently as a five-day midweek fixture, but clashes were ominous as it extended. Still, in 2013, it only clashed on its opening day, an all-National Hunt card, with the Curragh, all Flat, and then ran five mixed cards before reverting to all-jumps card on the Saturday. There were 28 Flat races v 32 National Hunt that year, but it’s 38-34 this week.

Hopefully, Listowel has found its permanent home in the last week of September, back where it started, but I worry about the effects of so much low-class racing on the sport.

Surely eight meetings are sufficient in a week, and the disciplines should be divided as needed, just like in 2013, because the gravy train of media rights money won’t last forever.

The racegoers we are boring to tears will have disappeared by the time people realise they need them. The average attendance for the all-weather racing in the UK is 672 in the winter months. City Of Troy drew a bigger crowd to watch him work. That says it all.