My maiden Irish voyage could hardly have gone better - and I'll definitely be back

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so hats off to Leopardstown for making my maiden voyage to an Irish racecourse a memorable one.

I've visited most British racecourses, mainly in a working capacity, but Ireland had been uncharted territory until last weekend. It was an anomaly I wanted to put right, so when I was invited to join some friends on Saturday I jumped at the chance.

I wasn't alone. A total of 34,591 attended the two days, which was a 40 per cent rise on 2022. An even more startling figure was that 27 per cent of all tickets were purchased from Britain.