IN a recent interview in the Racing Post Dermot Weld remarked that the single biggest change he has witnessed over the course of six decades training is Ireland’s emergence as the powerhouse of European racing.

That view is borne out by this afternoon’s Irish Champion Stakes where the focus for a number of weeks has rested entirely on the domestic contingent as opposed to potential overseas challengers.

There are occasions when we bemoan, sometimes correctly, a lack of overseas participation in some of our major races but this afternoon’s showpiece is a race fit to grace any venue in the world.

The fact that the three main protagonists all hail from these shores is the most fitting illustration of Weld’s recent observations as you have a 2000 Guineas winner taking on a Breeders’ Cup Turf heroine and Ireland’s first winner of the Prix du Jockey Club since 1983.

This precis represents the very embodiment of what Weld was taking about and stands in sharp contrast to where Irish flat racing found itself back in the early 1990s.

Indeed from 1988 to 1995 inclusive, just two Irish-trained horses made the frame in the Irish Champion Stakes, one being the Tommy Stack-trained Kostroma who was third to Elmaamul in the final staging of the race at the Phoenix Park in 1990 before, two years later, St Jovite was denied by old rival Dr Devious in that never-to-be-forgotten battle which went the latter’s way by a short-head.

So some 29 years after St Jovite suffered that defeat, Jim Bolger is back with another formidable Irish Champion Stakes contender in Poetic Flare.

Blend of class

A brilliant miler with an outstanding constitution, he possesses that formidable blend of class and determination that have been the hallmarks of so many Bolger greats.

Whether he can stretch out to 10 furlongs is one of the fascinating aspects of this afternoon’s showpiece.

It is entirely appropriate that the Coolcullen trainer is represented this afternoon as he was more than adept at competing on the international stage during a time when Ireland was a far less noteworthy international racing jurisdiction than it is today.

It would be wrong to refer to classic success as routine but nowadays a victory for an Irish-trained horse in either a domestic or foreign classic has become much more commonplace and routine. Thus back in the early 1990s, Bolger’s feat of sending out horses to be placed in three consecutive Derbys at Epsom was quite extraordinary.

Best trained?

Then we have the brilliant Tarnawa who is possibly the best horse that Dermot Weld has trained. Already an international superstar, the Aga Khan-owned mare lines up defending a five-race unbeaten run which included that stunning Group 1 hat-trick last autumn.

That succession of top-level triumphs reached its zenith with a Breeders’ Cup Turf success, and that victory enabled her trainer to fill a very rare omission in perhaps the most decorated international record in racing.

Given that Tarnawa has already secured for her trainer a first Breeders’ Cup win it would be quite fitting if she could provide him with a first victory in this great race, which he came closest to winning when Dance Design finished second to compatriot Timarida in 1996.

Then we come to Aidan O’Brien who enjoyed the first of his nine wins in this race when Giant’s Causeway prevailed in 2000, with the next four placings filled by horses hailing from England, France and Germany. This victory was to be the start of a sequence that has seen O’Brien become the most successful trainer in the race’s history.

Some 21 years later, the Ballydoyle trainer returns to the scene of some great triumphs with a horse who has already shown himself to be one of the best colts that O’Brien has had through his hands since Giant’s Causeway.

Furthermore, there is the distinct possibility that the best is still to come from St Mark’s Basilica who done nothing but improve in a sequence of races that sees him lining up in search of a fifth straight victory at the top level.

So this year’s Irish Champion Stakes looks set to be fought out by a trio of singular talents, and the fact all three are domestically based certainly bears out Dermot Weld’s view about Ireland’s emergence at the forefront of European racing.

To have three such talents based here would have been unthinkable at one stage, but the fact they are is something to celebrate and acknowledge at the start of a huge weekend which will show off Irish flat racing at its very finest.