Crowds flock to Galway Races© Photo Healy Racing
Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) issued statistics last week for the first six months of 2022. These figures were compared to the same period in pre-Covid 2019 to give context and some of the trends are quite surprising.
Bloodstock Sales are up 31% this year compared to 2019. Horses in training are also up 15% and Active Owners have similarly increased by 22%.
These big increases would seem to suggest that horse racing is thriving post Covid restrictions. But while more people now want to own a racehorse, less are actually interested in seeing them race. Attendances were down 9% from the 2019 levels.
If we dig a little deeper into the stats we find that the attendances are on a pretty steep decline. The average attendance at race meetings in Ireland was 3,704 in 2014 but now stands at just 2,841, a 30% decrease in 8 years.
It seems counter intuitive that demand for race horses can be increasing while attendances fall but perhaps we are seeing a microcosm of society as a whole - the gap between rich and poor is widening.
As the rich get richer they are more inclined to buy racehorses with their spare cash but at the same time the general population is getting squeezed and luxuries like a day at the races are dropping down their list of priorities.
Maybe that is too simplistic a hypothesis to explain these trends, but it certainly looks unsustainable to have the racehorse population increasing while the attendance rates are falling so sharply.
In any other sector you would expect a fall in attendances to be reflected to some degree in the prize money on offer but of course that is not the case in the subsidised world of Irish horse racing. Prize money is down just 2% since 2019.
Not only is prize money not linked to bums on seats but it’s also apparent that sponsorship has absolutely no bearing on prize money levels. Race sponsorship is down a whopping 26% in the last 4 years.
There would seem to be very little incentive for the racecourses to hunt down sponsors. It has no impact on the prize money they offer for their races and Media Rights money already covers all their costs.
Perhaps the Media Rights cash is also proving a disincentive for the racecourses when it comes to attracting a live audience?
The lack of audiences at the races is having a major impact on the betting activity at the tracks. The total amount of betting turnover - Tote, Bookies and Betting Shops - on course stands at €29.5 million for the first six months of this year. Presuming the entire year’s total will be somewhere in the region of €60 million this is a long way short of the 2015 yearly total of €156 million.
Alarm bells should be ringing within HRI about these dramatic falls in both attendances and on-course betting activity but I’m not certain the penny has really dropped. In the press release that accompanied the latest sets of figures Suzanne Eade, CEO of HRI, said: “After a challenging couple of years, the hard work and efforts across the industry has meant that Irish racing is in a strong position to face up to the combined challenges of the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and an increase in the general cost of living.
“What has decreased, by 9%, is the attendance levels compared to 2019. Many sports and leisure sectors have faced a challenge in returning to pre-Covid levels of attendance and Irish racing is not immune to that. It is a challenge that everybody will step up to and over the past few weeks we have enacted a strong media marketing campaign to drive attendances throughout the summer. I have seen many instances of innovation and strong engagement from racecourses over the past few weeks and months and am confident that the interest we know there is in racing, will translate back into racecourse attendance.”
2019 now appears to be the benchmark for everything. But 2019 figures were themselves well down on previous years and it’s far too simplistic a narrative to only compare pre and post Covid.
HRI and the industry as a whole will be hoping Galway provides a much needed shot in the arm for the sport this week. The marathon Summer Festival is crucial to many within horse racing and fortunately it always delivers. Crazy accommodation prices in and around the city will likely have an impact on attendances this year but Galway races have an ability to buck the trends year after year.
Galway is one racecourse that really puts its customers first and is constantly innovating and improving its product. It’s no accident that crowds flock to the west for this week each year and if all other tracks followed their lead I don’t think attendances and betting turnover would be in such a steep decline.
All in all Galway is a brilliant week’s racing and one of my favourite times of the year. The perfect mix of jumps and flat, and while some of the races may lack quality they more than make up for in their competitive nature.
We are always led to believe that virtually all horses are trying their best in all races every day during the year, with only very rare exceptions when the stewards hold a ‘running and riding enquiry’ and punish the offenders. Galway races tend to show us a different reality. These Galway maidens and handicaps are not quite the same as what we’ve been used to watching over the preceding weeks and months.
Maybe that’s another reason why attendances elsewhere are down?
