Preview and tips: Irish Champions Festival

If only the results at Leopardstown and the Curragh at the Irish Champions Festival were as easy to predict as the outcome of Ireland's Rugby World Cup opener against Romania on Saturday.

The impact that foregone conclusion has on crowd numbers at the Dublin track will be interesting to gauge on a weekend crammed with alternative sporting action on home soil, with the Irish Open reaching its denouement at the K Club and a Republic of Ireland side smarting from defeat against France hosting the Netherlands in the latest must-win game of Stephen Kenny’s reign.

Glorious September sunshine and the final Irish leg of Frankie Dettori’s farewell tour may help to swell the attendance figures this year, but the crowds have never reached the levels that the organisers hoped for when the weekend was first conceptualised.

The reality is Flat racing remains a hard sell to the general public on these shores.

Eight go to post for the feature Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes (3.20pm) on day one, with the somewhat enigmatic dual Derby winner Auguste Rodin favourite for the race.

Either side of those British and Irish Classic successes, he has flopped in the 2000 Guineas and the King George, with the latter of those defeats more difficult to explain.

His Epsom success came in a good time, with even more impressive closing sectionals, but the rest of his back catalogue hardly endorses his place as the market leader.

Last season’s Vertem Futurity Trophy victory was stunning visually, but Auguste Rodin’s rivals did too much, too soon, and Ryan Moore’s brilliant tactical ride arguably flattered the horse.

His Irish Derby win was achieved in workmanlike manner over an inferior stablemate that didn’t exactly receive the most vigorous of rides in the