Turf racing, while not the main focus at American Thoroughbred tracks, is the marquee event at many Irish racecourses. Neither of the courses we visited (The Curragh and Leopardstown) even offered a dirt oval!

My Irish heritage probably shows when I say I prefer turf racing as well. The structure of turf horses, with their solid build, heavy bone, and big strides, appeals to my own personal equine aesthetic a bit more than the lighter dirt horses. And there’s just something that feels right about a herd of horses sweeping along on the green, divots of grass flying behind.

We arrived at Leopardstown Racecourse ready to see a Thursday night program chock full of turf racing on the flat, including the Group 2 Debutante Stakes. The course’s communications staff could not have been more accommodating to our little group and were only too happy to set up video interviews.

And what a job they did! I asked for a trainer and someone who could talk about sales and the international market–and boy did I get the cream of the crop: Aidan O’Brien; bloodstock agent Bert Kerr of Kerr & Company (the oldest bloodstock agency in the world, he said); and Damien McElroy, racing correspondent for the Irish Independent