Racing

Leopardstown confident they are ‘getting on top’ of ground issues at track

Track hosts back-to-back meetings on Sunday and Monday and Cheltenham schooling

Trainer Henry de Bromhead and jockey Rachael Blackmore check the ground at Leopardstown during the Christmas festival. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho

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Brian O'Connor
Tue Mar 1 2022 - 15:39

Leopardstown officials are confident they are “getting on top” of the ground issues that have affected the steeplechase course in recent years.

Selective watering is already taking place ahead of back-to-back fixtures at the track this Sunday and Monday.

A crucial schooling session for Cheltenham prospects is also in the pipeline with the chase going currently yielding and good, to yielding in places.

“There will be schooling, depending on demand, either on Monday evening [after racing] or Tuesday morning. We’ve had some expressions of interest already but it’s too early yet to know about numbers. That’s for the trainers to decide.

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"Hopefully they will get very similar ground to what we had at the Dublin Racing Festival, which everyone was delighted with," Leopardstown's chief executive Tim Husbands said on Tuesday.

Intensive watering took place on the chase course between Christmas and last month’s festival, where ground conditions were generally welcomed by trainers and jockeys.

“We definitely are making very good progress. We have plans in place for the next 12 months or so that we manage it appropriately and make it easier to deliver the ground we delivered at the Dublin Racing Festival,” Husbands added

“The fact we were able to do that should hopefully give a lot of confidence to trainers that we are getting on top of it.”

Separately, Gavin Cromwell has confirmed his 2021 Cheltenham winners, Flooring Porter and Vanillier, are on course to return to the festival.

Flooring Porter will defend his Stayers’ Hurdle crown and the Co Meath trainer reported of his quirky star: “He certainly has grown up. He wore a red hood at the start at Leopardstown [Christmas festival]. That worked well and he’ll certainly have that on for Cheltenham. I’m confident he’ll be okay.

“I know Klassical Dream got beat in Gowran the last day but it was a massive run at Christmas and if he can reproduce that he’s going to take a lot of beating.”

Tim Husbands