I AM sitting at a desk in my hotel room in Riyadh, studying the field of 13 runners for today’s Group 1 Saudi Cup.

There are really two races for this richly-endowed contest, the first which concerns the seven runners who have already enjoyed success at the highest level, and the rest.

The prize money is mind-boggling, and there are six runners from Japan, a couple from the USA, one from the UAE, and four local challengers, including last year’s shock winner, Emblem Road.

The race is, of course, on dirt, which limits its appeal to European runners, but given the quality of a few of the lesser horses in the field, and the fact that the ninth-place finisher will receive £250,000, it is surprising that there was not even one competitor from this part of the world.

Great pity

Sadly, especially from this spectator’s point of interest, there are no Irish challengers at all this year on the card, a great pity given that the Red Sea Turf Handicap has a winner’s prize of £1.25 million, and both of the Group 3 races on turf will reward the winning connections with a cheque for a cool £750,000.

Contrast the lack of Irish equine challengers today at the King Abdulaziz Racetrack with our ‘domination’ of the upcoming Randox Grand National at Aintree on April 15th.

A total of 81 horses officially hold an entry for this £1 million race, half of that amount going to the winner. That figure, however, still includes the now retired former winner, Minella Times, and three of the entries have still to qualify to compete.

There is much talk since their publication of the shortage of British entries, they make up 27 of the 81, but the most glaring aspect of this paucity of possible runners is the fact that all but two of the top 23 horses in the handicap are trained in Ireland.

This reflects the present stranglehold that Irish trainers enjoy, and Gordon Elliott has his name beside more than a quarter of the current entries, though two of his 21 have still to become eligible to race.

Successful with Silver Birch in 2007, and twice with Tiger Roll, Elliott will be attempting to become just the fourth man in history to saddle four winners of the race, and he, along with a host of other Irish-based trainers, will be vying to have the honour of saddling the 20th Irish winner. Ten of those have come since 2000.

Oh, an interesting footnote given recent trends. Eight of the 81 horses are bred in Britain, 26 in France, but Irish-breds total 47.