APART from Champion Hurdle Day at Cheltenham and the opening days of Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood, Tuesdays tend to be quiet from a

racing point of view but all that changes this week when The Curragh stages Ryder Cup Raceday, a meeting set to be the richest staged in Ireland with a total prize pot of €2.7 million.

The €1m Shelbourne Hotel Goffs Million (for two-year-olds sold by Goffs as yearlings in 2005) and the €500,000 Goffs Five Hundred (for fillies only) are responsible for the bulk of the prize money on Tuesday but there’s also the Group Two Blandford Stakes to provide a quality contest for the older fillies and mares.

As well as these worthy contests and the added possibility that racegoers might find themselves rubbing

shoulders with some of the Ryder Cup stars set to battle it out at The K Club later in the week, anyone staying on after the last race will witness a Parade of Champions which must be one of the best organised, with a selection of equine jumping legends to quicken the pulse of any racing fan.

Over the years, I’ve been privileged to stand and clap some great old heroes as they have been paraded at Cheltenham before Champion

Hurdles, Champion Chases and Gold Cups but with Istabraq, Florida Pearl, Solerina and Limestone Lad lining up in the paddock alongside current stars such as Kicking King, Newmill, Hedgehunter and Hardy Eustace,

Ireland’s most valuable race day will be rounded off with the sight of some of the country’s greatest jumpers being cheered to the rooftops.

Jumping’s dalliance with Flat racing on Tuesday also ties in with the

publication of Timeform Chasers and Hurdlers 2005/06, the annual tome from the sages of Halifax stretching to 1,104 pages this year with the

Champion Hurdler Brave Inca

nominated as Timeform’s overall

Champion Jumper for last season.

They probably have that one right along with their selections of Monet’s Garden and Black Jack Ketchum as the best novices over fences and

hurdles but the big talking point will surely be the Best Staying Chaser accolade awarded to Beef Or Salmon, a decision made all the more debatable by the “x” added to Beef Or Salmon’s rating of 174.

Almost as derogatory as the famous Timeform “squiggle” which is

allocated to the rogues and vagabonds of the horse world (those deemed decidedly untrustworthy when it comes to putting their best feet forward), the “x” suffix next to Beef Or Salmon’s rating effectively translates to “dodgy jumper” in Timeform parlance, an unusual critique of the chaser otherwise deemed to be the best of the current crop.

As a record of the jumping season past, the book is a wonderful work of reference and from Aaron’s Run to Zygomatic, there’s at least a sentence on every horse which ran during the season, the essay on this year’s Grand National winner, Numbersixvalverde, being a particular highlight.

At £66, Chasers and Hurdlers doesn’t come cheap but if you are serious about racing, and jumping in particular, you will find it a vital piece of kit for the winter months to come.

major impact

THEY are going to be racing at Kelso, Market Rasen, Uttoxeter and Tipperary two weeks today but despite the undoubted attractions of those marvellous venues, I suspect we will find that events at Longchamp that same afternoon will eclipse everything else going on in the racing world.

For the first time since El Condor Pasa beat all but the magnificent

Montjeu in the Prix de l’Arc de

Triomphe of 1999, Japan will have a leading contender in Europe’s richest and probably best, all-aged horse-race.

They have since had Tap Dance City well beaten behind Bago in 2004 but this time, everyone in Japan seems to believe they are sending the real deal to Paris in the shape of Deep Impact. Jockey Yutaka Take says this horse is twice as good as El Condor Pasa and having been at Saint Cloud the day El Condor Pasa won there ahead of his Arc bid, then Deep Impact must be some kind of superhorse. I’ve never seen a horse take as long to pull up as El Condor Pasa did that day and had he not been forced to make the

running in the Arc itself, he would

probably have beaten Montjeu.

The four-year-old Deep Impact has lost one race in 11 starts, has won five Grade Ones between 10 and 16 furlongs and despite not having run since June, is already a general 7/2 chance for Longchamp. He’s boarding in France with trainer Carlos Laffon-Parias and if he and the leading contenders can come through the next fortnight unscathed, we should have the race of the season to savour.

Already in the frame for the 85th running of this great race are last year’s winner Hurricane Run, last Sunday’s trial race winners Shirocco (Prix Foy), Rail Link (Prix Niel) and Mandesha (Prix Vermeille), as well as Pride and several other possibles such as 2006 Classic winners Dylan Thomas, Alexandrova, Sir Percy and Sixties Icon, along with Youmzain and Day Flight.

Trainer Andre Fabre has won five Arcs in 14 years and if it wasn’t for the presence of Deep Impact in the ante-post market, he would be responsible for the first three in the betting as

Hurricane Run, Shirocco and Rail Link are all under his charge.

Jockey plans will only become apparent over the next fortnight but top men such as Mick Kinane, Richard Hughes and Kerrin McEvoy will be eager to pick up any scraps left over by Messrs Soumillon, Dettori, Spencer and Fallon as they sort out their preferred mounts.