Leopardstown officials all set for showpiece weekend

Leopardstown are relishing the prospect of a full racecourse as they prepare for two days of top-class action during the Dublin Racing Festival.

The showpiece meeting was forced behind closed doors in 2021 and at one stage a limit to the number of spectators allowed this season seemed likely, but the Irish government has since eased restrictions and a full crowd is expected across the weekend.

The card, which includes eight Grade One races and offers over €2million in prize-money, is filled with some of the biggest names in the sport as the reigning Gold Cup, Grand National and Champion Hurdle winners are all entered.

It will be a first experience of the meeting for the track’s racing and operations manager Jane Hedley, who left a long-term role as a clerk of the course at the Jockey Club to take up the post in October.

“We were really happy at the entries stage and most of the key players are running so we’re very pleased,” she said.

“We’re so looking forward to it, it will be great just have everybody here at last.”

The going at Leopardstown is currently yielding on both tracks, with rain due to begin falling on Saturday afternoon and continue through to the Sunday.

“Unfortunately it does look like it might be a bit cloudier than we’d imagined and we might get a bit of rain tomorrow afternoon, but hopefully everyone manages to have a good time,” Hedley said.

“It’s yielding on both courses, we’ve had seven millimetres of rain overnight and we are expecting more rain tomorrow (Saturday) and overnight into Sunday.”

Like all venues Leopardstown has seen the presence of spectators severely limited by Covid measures throughout the past two years, but the track suffered a further interruption when the Christmas meeting was held without general admission ticketholders in late December.

The measure was not imposed by the government but rather a result of a high number of Covid cases amongst raceday staff, leaving the racecourse even more eager to welcome back a crowd.

“We’re expecting in the region of 25,000 people across the two days,” said Hedley.

“It’s been a long time coming but I think people are dying to get back here, we’ve got a new layout as well which I believe crowds have not experienced yet so let’s hope they all enjoy it.”