THE Shergar Cup might not be for everyone. You could say it distracts away from the main attraction of racing. You could claim the competition lacks real formality. And you could claim you just don’t care about who wins it.

But you cannot argue with just short of 32,000 people through the gate and into racing. For any racing event, that is a huge figure. To put it into context, Qipco Champions Day will do very well to eclipse that figure as the largest attended fixture at Ascot outside of the royal meeting.

So Shergar Cup day is a bigger day than King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes Day, Clarence House Chase Day, Betfair Ascot Chase Day and Wessex Youth Trust Handicap Hurdle (Ladbroke Hurdle to you and me) Day. All days that have Group/Grade 1 races.

Huge crowds have shown up to Ascot for the fun of the Shergar Cup

So it’s a huge part of Ascot’s calendar. It’s worth noting that Ascot market the day as Shergar Cup and concert, and that the headline acts on Saturday (Feeder, All Saints and Craig David) would arguably, as a collective unit, sell out big arenas in London twice over. But it was more than encouraging to read that Nick Smith, Ascot’s director of racing and communications, released figures that revealed 84% of the attendance at Ascot on Saturday were on site by 1:15pm. There to enjoy the whole day of racing.

Getting this sort of unique crowd, a lot of which will be coming racing for the first or second time, is absolute gold to racing. Many inside the sport know the product is there - it’s just getting people to experience it.

Is it time we had a look of creating a similar event in Ireland? It wouldn’t even have to be an international theme. It could be Ireland v Britain, or Leinster v Munster or Cork v Kildare v Tipperary v Carlow, or Girls v Boys, or Jumps v Flat, or Apprentices vs Over 40’s.

It just needs to be something for the crowd to latch onto combined with a music act afterwards. Leopardstown have shown that music after racing is an attractive proposition. And all you have to do is look at the year-on year success of tomorrow night’s latest staging of ‘Hurling for Cancer’ to view the good use of creating a team atmosphere and borrowing Irish sports people’s tribal propensity to create a unique event.

This type of event would need investment and it would need good organisation, something along the lines of Irish Champions Weekend-type organisation. But surely, given Ascot’s success, this is worth a punt?

ALL EYES ON DEAUVILLE

All eyes will be on Deauville tomorrow evening where prospective Irish Champion Stakes contenders Almanzor, last year’s winner, and Brametot run in separate 10-furlong races.

For Almanzor, Europe’s champion three-year-old colt last season, this will be his first race of the season after becoming one of the horses affected by the deadly virus that swept through Jean-Claude Rouget’s yard. The hope is that he retains all of his ability as he was a quite brilliant winner at Leopardstown, in one of the best ever editions of the 10-furlong Group 1, last season.

Almanzor was a brilliant winner of the Irish Champion Stakes last year

In many ways Brametot has a similar profile to Almanzor at this time last year - a lower profile French Derby winner yet to race outside of his home country and perhaps yet to impress as a world-beater. So for that reason alone he would be a welcome and intriguing addition to Leopardstown.

We’ll have a clearer picture about which one may show up to Dublin next month after tomorrow.

DON’T FORGET THE CLIFFS

It is one of the idiosyncrasies of racing as to how quickly a horse’s reputation can sink or indeed rise after just one or two performances.

Earlier in the season Caravaggio was on track for sprinting stardom, having reeled in Godolphin pair Harry Angel and Blue Point in the Commonwealth Cup, the highlight for many at Royal Ascot. Now, excuses from Ballydoyle are needed to explain two of his latest runs.

And what for the case of Cliffs Of Moher? The talking horse at the start of the season but now perhaps the forgotten one. The Galileo colt clocked a serious time on his final start as a juvenile last season which provided the base for the hype that generated a Derby contender. He has since been workmanlike in winning his Derby trial at Chester, finished a close second in the Derby itself and ran well when fourth in the Eclipse, having suffered considerable interference, caused by his own stablemate, early in the race.

On the face of it, the three-year-old has done very little wrong and for that reason the 16/1 about him in the Juddmonte International is worth a second look. He is likely to be a ‘second string’ horse there, with Churchill also an intended runner but he more than deserves another crack a top-level race.

Cliffs Of Moher (dark blue) looked to have won the Derby until stablemate Wings Of Eagles (purple) swooped late