WHEN assessing the broad spread of winners across this year’s Irish Champions Festival, the racing product was in stark contrast to what can materialise in terms of the Formula 1 domination we often see.

Across the weekend’s 17 races, there were trainers based in three different countries who managed to get on the scoresheet and a total of 12 different yards among the winners. No trainer had more than four winners, that being Aidan O’Brien with a double on both cards. Very welcome statistics indeed.