The Pat Smullen Column: ICW Ambassadorial Role An Honour

[Wandering Eyes]

Being asked to be ambassador for the Longines Irish Champions weekend is really exciting for me and I’m very grateful to Horse Racing Ireland and the Longines Irish Champions Weekend committee for allowing me to do a lot of charitable work over that weekend as well.  This was something that I was really conscious that I wanted to do after all the great care I’ve been given in the last 16 months and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I could do to raise funds for the pancreatic cancer charity. When they came and put this suggestion to me it was just a perfect fit to do this and to try to achieve all that I want to achieve. It’s very exciting for me personally:  the two things that I’m really passionate about are obviously racing and now to try to raise awareness and funds for the charity.

We have a lot of exciting projects that we’re working on to tie in with what is the best weekend of Flat racing in the Irish season and we will announce those in due course. There will be plenty of opportunities for the general public and people within the industry to contribute to the charity and we are working hard to make it fun and exciting and hopefully to add to the excitement of Champions Weekend. My job is to get these projects off the ground and to make sure we have some interesting events to go alongside the great racing we have on the track.  I’m really looking forward to a brilliant weekend, and with some hard work from the right people hopefully we can pull it off.

Racing people are always very generous when they get behind these sorts of events and those I have spoken to so far have been very positive. I’m going to be annoying a lot of people and calling on them to help and to donate. It’s going to be a good project for me for the next couple of months to get it all up and going and to be given the opportunity to run the charitable events over our best two days of flat racing is a real honour for me.

Funds raised will be directed towards pancreatic cancer through Cancer Trials Ireland.  My oncologist Ray McDermott is very heavily involved in that project and I’m getting a lot of guidance from him. I’m conscious that we want to try to aim our fundraising at an area in which it can make a difference.

We saw on Saturday how generous the racing community can be when backing these sorts of charitable events. The 11 riders in the MacMillan Cancer charity race at York raised £640,000, which was a fantastic effort and well done to all of them.

I will also be pushing for non-racing people to come racing and to support the charity and hopefully they will see how great an industry we are working in and how much fun a day at the races can be.

The Irish Champions weekend was a terrific initiative from the committee who put their minds together to get it off the ground. They have done an excellent job and it has been a real revelation for Irish Flat racing.  A championship weekend was much needed to showcase Irish racing on the world stage and I think we have that now.  There’s an intelligent bunch of people behind the Champions weekend and they will be aware of the fact that from time to time things need tweaking to try to make it better. The one thing I am confident about is that the people involved will do all they can to continue the success of the weekend and make changes where they feel necessary, and I hope I can contribute to that as well.

Over the last couple of years, a really great atmosphere has been created at Leopardstown. I distinctly remember winning the Group 3 on Champion Stakes day at Leopardstown on Free Eagle (Ire) and it’s been a long time since I felt the sort of atmosphere that was there that day on an Irish racecourse.  It’s very important to have a great atmosphere to match the great racing and Leopardstown is there now. We now need to focus on getting the Curragh back to where we need to be with full attendances and a similarly good atmosphere.

Putting On The Top Hat
Today will be the first time I have attended Royal Ascot in a top hat and tails rather than as a jockey and I’m really excited about it. It’s obviously fabulous racing and I’m really looking forward to the international flavour that will be there, both human and equine. It should be an amazing week and I’m looking forward to seeing it from a different angle.

English racing is so lucky to have the Queen’s involvement. She’s a huge part of the attraction of Royal Ascot, and not just to that meeting but to racing itself.  I’ve been lucky enough to meet the Queen after winning the Gold Cup and also the Derby, and when I met her everybody wanted to know more about the Queen than winning the race. That is the persona that that amazing lady has and I really hope that one of the next generation of her family will develop the same interests in racing that she has. I’ve been very fortunate to ride for her as well, and I was struck by her knowledge of her horses and the form. She’s extremely well versed on racing and it was an honour to have ridden for her and to have met her on the great days we had winning those races.

All Power To Paddy
There are a couple of horses that I’m really looking forward to seeing in action this week. I think Paddy Twomey has a very good 2-year-old on his hands in Sunday Sovereign (GB) (Equiano {Fr}), who was recently sold to King Power Racing and runs on Thursday in the Norfolk Stakes. He looks very fast and, though we all know that the 2-year-old races are very hard to win, he looks to have a real fighting chance.

I’ve also been very taken with Magical (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) this year. I think she’s been extremely well trained by Aidan O’Brien. She’s already won a couple of races including the G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh over Guineas weekend, but she has not been really strenuously tested yet this year. I feel that she’s going into Ascot full of confidence and I think that was a deliberate ploy by Aidan. I’m sure she’s going to play a big hand in what is probably going to be the best race of the week in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes. It’s exciting to see Sea Of Class (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) back again and now that Masar (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}) is going for the Hardwicke it allows James Doyle to renew his association with Sea Of Class, which is very important with for the mare. I think she is a filly that needs knowing and he knows her inside out. I’m sure her connections and William Haggas were relieved when James was available to ride her. It should be a really good race and I just have this feeling that Magical is in a really good place and ready to show her best against the best.

 

 

 

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