Ruby Walsh: Latest strategy for Irish horse racing far from convincing

However, HRI gave us the skeletal outline of a series of races that would be run for standard prize money and have winners and losers, with the runs considered for handicapping purposes.

Yet, the winning horses wouldn’t be winners of a hurdle race, as they would retain their maiden status and be eligible for bumpers, and the losers wouldn't have sacrificed their hunter certs. In short, we get point-to-point hurdles without needing a hunter cert and running on the track over hurdles.

We have no idea how many of these races there will be or how many an individual horse can run in. We don't know if a winner can run a second time, and we don't know what distance these races will be, but we have a proposal for new races: races for unraced National Hunt-type three-year-olds to mirror the French system of racing their stock sooner to give what we breed a better chance of maximising its potential. But who has the horses?

These academy hurdles propose creating a system where “Irish” horses go into training earlier and run younger to enhance their development. This is fair enough if that data shows that to be an advantage, with the idea to mirror the French system. Only, in France a winner is a winner, whereas we are leaving the door open for those who run and get experience over hurdles to go back into the grassroots system of point-to-pointing and bumpers.

That back door is there because of the belief that our program doesn’t cater to these horses after the academy races, but it does because they either move onto maiden hurdles and bumpers or take part in the existing four-year-old spring hurdle races.

This is where the veil on this series starts to snag because the program theory doesn’t wash. Removing the options to run in bumpers or be a maiden/novice has a more significant implication. It affects the horse's appeal for sale.

HRI views the races as the initial starting point for Irish National Hunt horses on the track to encourage young National Hunt horses to enter training earlier. HRI has also suggested these hurdles may be suitable for the supposed less fashionable types who can’t get into the select store sales as three-year-olds. So, we are justifying the races by suggesting they are beneficial to the breed but still know our best stock will be sold as three-year-old stores and pointed in the spring, at four.

So, what happens when the “less-fashionable types” who are broken and trained at two, run at three in academy hurdles and then turn up in the spring at four to challenge the fashionable store sale horses?

Those with the extra year of training and runs in the autumn of their three-year-old year will have an advantage over those who sold unbroken in the early summer. However, I am not sure that this creates a level playing field for the production of our future stars.

I also fully understand that trade is the backbone of this industry and drives the global economy, let alone horse racing, but over-trading has floored nations, so horse racing needs to be careful, too.

These academy races have been written to be very trade-friendly because trainers don’t have the stock for these races in 2025, so the supply will have to come from breeders and pin-hookers who want to trade.

The other supply will come via backward, Flat types who aren’t considered good enough to try the Flat at two or three and will remain unraced to seek a new home via these academy races.

Therefore, it is easy to believe that these races will develop into another layer or way of selling horses when the sport needs more horses to come to the track to race and not just enhance their value.

We already have a giant filter system that sorts the good from the ordinary before they reach the track, so one would have thought that any new scheme would try to remove those filters and bring back the randomness that scattered success in years past.

It is fanciful thinking, but one shouldn’t stop believing.

On the racing front this weekend, Cheltenham takes centre stage with the December Gold Cup. Il Ridoto will bid to follow up on his win in the Paddy Power Gold Cup last month, but the eye-catcher in that contest was the fast-finishing Madarra, and I think he can improve enough to turn the tables.

Fairyhouse kicks off bright and early, at 11.30am, with arguably the best race being run in Ireland this weekend. Majborough makes his chasing debut, and the exciting 2024 Triumph Hurdle winner faces two talented stablemates in Asian Master and Tullyhill.

Willie Mullins doesn't hide the regard in which he holds JP McManus’s four-year-old, and he should be worth tuning in to watch. The last four Sundays were the cream of what Irish racing can offer, and Christmas is coming, but tomorrow’s card in Navan is still a bit of a letdown.

The lower ranks will always and should always be catered for, but scheduling six handicaps for horses rated 123 or less on the showcase day is not very appealing to the public. None of those races even filled or has a reserve, but at least one of the good races from last Saturday's Navan card should be on tomorrow’s programme. At least give the paying customers one feature race to go and enjoy.