Did racing really need another Ballydoyle benefit? It's time to pull the plug on the big-value Irish Cesarewitch

Sunday's Curragh fixture featured the third edition of the Irish Cesarewitch under the Friends of the Curragh banner with a €600,000 prize fund. The three-year contract is up and I hope this ill-considered venture will be abandoned.

When criticising this extravagance at the time of the sponsorship announcement in 2022, I did so reluctantly. I felt bad complaining about sponsors who were putting their money into an initiative from which they sought no commercial return.

However, I saw no obvious rationale for a monumental boost to the prize fund of a race that attracted a maximum field of 30, plus reserves, when won in 2021 by the John Kiely-trained Line Out.