A rich man's world funded by the taxpayer: Irish racing has got this badly wrong

"Money makes the world go around," as Liza Minnelli sang in Cabaret.

Last weekend at the Curragh there was plenty of that "clinking, clanking sound" of money as the spoils of the Goffs Million and the Friends of the Curragh Irish Cesarewitch were divvied up.

These two richly endowed events are anomalous, with values wildly at odds with the standard. The Goffs Million delivered a bonanza that puts Ireland's prestigious Group 1 juvenile races in the shade. The revamped Irish Cesarewitch offered a €600,000 fund that dwarfs its fellow premier handicaps and makes the Group 1 Irish St Leger look like a poor relation.