This uncompetitive jumps season needs a shot in the arm at Leopardstown

Now in its third year, the Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown is already established as the second-most significant event in Ireland's jump racing calendar, surpassed only by the season's climactic action at the Punchestown festival.

Its two-day framework, involving a concentration of valuable races, means that it has leapfrogged the same venue's more diluted four-day Christmas meeting in importance.

The fixture is strategically positioned in relation to Cheltenham, perfect for owners and trainers, potentially informative for a public eager to lap up clues for those four defining days in March.