The Dublin Racing Festival
I’ve often cautioned about racing at this time of year.
After the uptick we get in quality over Christmas and New Year, we slip into, most likely, a weather-disrupted period with lower-quality racing and promising opportunities that are few and far between.
When a bunch of ‘bumpers for jumpers’ enter the racing card regularly, you know you are swimming against the tide. This is why I’ve never put vast amounts of focus on this time of the year. It can often be a case of squeezing blood from a stone. In Summer, it’s like sipping fine wine served to you from a golden goblet while you recline with your indulgence on a bed of rose petals.
As the saying goes, make hay when the sun shines.
As we move through this period, the Winter Millions at Ascot & Windsor is a welcome sight. But we have even better action on our doorstep just over the Irish Sea.
What is the Dublin Racing Festival?
The Dublin Racing Festival takes centre stage this weekend, with many Grade One contests and plenty of prize money up for grabs. This also rolls into Sunday, so I’ll be keeping an eye on both days, but Saturday is the key day.
Traditionally, Leopardstown hosted key feature races, which were well spaced apart over three meetings. The Dublin Racing Festival is a streamlined merger of the three meetings, wrapped into a two-day meeting full of quality.
I traded from Leopardstown a few years ago, when I was asked to do a brief slot at an event there. I quite like the big Irish meetings, so I’m looking forward to that on Saturday.
It’s often been a highlight for me at this time of the year, and it’s worth your attention.
Irish racing
Irish racing typically trades about half the volume on UK meetings, but group 1 races often exceed your average UK meeting volume. Irish racing is perfectly tradeable when the volume rises on the feature races.
One possible problem you have with Irish racing is that they tend to race their big races on a Sunday, you may require some brownie points for that!
Another interesting thing you will also note is that Betdaq trades well on Irish racing. The average turnover on Betdaq is much higher on Irish racing than usual. It tends to trade really well on the group racing and is worth a go.
