All €100,000 of prize money for the Troytown Chase was won by the big four stables© Photo Healy Racing
The concentration of all the quality National Hunt horses in less than a handful of stables has been a bugbear for the last number of years, but as it has coincided with unprecedented success for Irish-trained horses at Cheltenham it has often seemed a price worth paying.
Sunday’s Troytown Chase with 15 of the 22 declared runners representing one yard coming just a week after only two trainers made entries for the first Grade One race of the season has me fearful of where the sport is heading.
What is also noteworthy about those two races is that champion trainer Willie Mullins had no involvement in either. What will the big races look like when his yard gets into full swing?
There are five big races coming up in the next month for which we already have advanced entries - Morgiana Hurdle, John Durkan Memorial Chase, Royal Bond Novice Hurdle, Drinmore Novice Chase and Hatton’s Grace Hurdle.
Mogiana has 9 entries - 5 Willie Mullins and 4 Gordon Elliott.
John Durkan 15 entries - 8 Willie Mullins, 3 Gordon Elliott, 1 Henry de Bromhead.
Royal Bond 27 entries - 13 Gordon Elliott, 6 Willie Mullins, 3 Henry de Bromhead.
Drinmore 18 entries - 9 Gordon Elliott, 2 Willie Mullins, 2 Henry de Bromhead.
Hatton’s Grace 15 entries - 7 Gordon Elliott, 6 Willie Mullins.
Of course this is nothing new as all these races have been dominated by the big three stables for a decade or more. The last 12 winners of the Morgiana Hurdle have been trained by either Willie Mullins or Gordon Elliott. 8 of the last 9 John Durkans and 8 of the last 9 Royal Bonds went the same way. 8 of the last 11 Drinmores and all of the last 8 Hatton’s Graces were won by the big three.
Outside of the big three yards Gavin Cromwell is certainly emerging as a fourth powerhouse as almost everyone else fades away. Cromwell picked up both bumpers at Navan over the weekend and went close in several other races including the feature event with Limerick Lace finishing second in the Troytown Chase. He was also active at Cheltenham over the weekend where he came away with another brace of winners.
I suppose we have to be somewhat thankful that there are actually four stables in the country still competing at the top level, but when you see the scale of their dominance you have to wonder how the majority of the rest make ends meet.
One in every six horses you see in Irish National Hunt races are now trained by just four men.
The big four stables accounted for approximately 17% of all National Hunt runners last season (3,164 runners). These same four trainers won over 40% of the total prize money on offer last season (€13,692,515 in winnings between them).
Early indications suggest that their grip on the sport will be considerably tighter by the time we come around to totting up the figures at the end of this season after the Punchestown Festival on 4th May.
At some point I can see Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) needing to have a rethink about how much of their annual budget they use to subsidise prize money.
€8.5 million of the €13.7 million in prize money won by the big four National Hunt yards last season was tax payers money provided by the Government to support the industry.
62% of all prize money doled out in Ireland originates from the Government funding. Perhaps if a little of that money was used to support the smaller trainers it might help keep some of them in the game a while longer.
23% of trainers that ran horses in Ireland in 2022 (both National Hunt and Flat) won zero prize money.
Finally, the very best of luck to Denis O’Regan on his retirement from the saddle. The 41-year-old never quite hit the heights that his considerable talent deserved. This was in part due to the fact that when he was in his prime so were Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty, AP McCoy, Davy Russell and Paul Carberry.
Denis still leaves the game with the unique achievement of having ridden a winner at every jumps course in Ireland and Britain. Hereford was the final piece in that jigsaw and having ridden a winner there earlier this month it was a fitting time to hang up his boots.
