With the Cheltenham Festival upon us, Cornelius Lysaght joined Monday's Off the Ball to look ahead to the big week of racing.
"This day is always very exciting," he told Joe, "Because there's been all sorts of anticipation since the meeting ended last March and now we've got to the stage where the talking has got to stop and we can get on with it which is quite a relief."
"In terms of Jockeys - Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty have been the big players now for a few years.
"It's astonishing that Ruby has been leading Jockey here 11 times and has dominated in recent years and just got back in the nick of time last week riding that winner at Thurles on Thursday to be fit to ride after his broken leg.
"So, there's an element of timelessness but then the changes, the most notable changes involve Ireland. My first festival working was 1983 and that was the year Bregawn won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Gaye Brief won the Champion Hurdle and I think Basworth Boy won the Queen Mother Champion Chase and Michael Dickinson had the one, two, three, four, five in the Gold Cup - and that year, Ireland had from the 18 races over three days - five or six winners or something like that and they didn't repeat that level for 10 years.
"Now look at it this year - four days and 28 races - last year 19 successes for Ireland. And, it shows how everything has changed so it's a microcosm of the change in Irish life, isn't it? In the 1980s, horses were being sold, big cheque books were coming lashing in from the UK and the horses were going off there.
"Nowadays there's more money in racing circles. Michael O'Leary's around, Rich Ricci the American financier is backing the Willie Mullins team and other well-off people as well, so horses are staying at home.
"The timelessness side of it is that horses are coming back but they now have different trainers, Irish trainers, and the British are up against it.
The full Festival preview can be heard here:
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