A day at the races

Sir, – Your racing correspondent is correct when he predicts that the weekend’s racing in Leopardstown is likely to be an even “more one-sided exercise” for the Willie Mullins stable than previous years (Brian O’Connor, “This Dublin Racing Festival could turn out to be a Mullins show like no other”, Sport, February 2nd).

In many of the races, Mr Mullins saddles over 50 per cent of the runners, while in the Grade One races, he has seven out of eight of the ante-post favourites.

While one can only applaud the Mullins success story, it is clear that the competitiveness of Irish National Hunt racing has all but disappeared.

A recent proposal from the British Horseracing Authority (BRA) to begin to deal with this issue by limiting a trainer to four runners in certain handicaps has been disregarded by Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and by the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association (IRTA). It seems that the Irish authorities have nothing to offer and refuse to even acknowledge that a problem exists.