Sire Du Berlais beat Teahupoo in last season's Stayers' Hurdle© Photo Healy Racing
The daily squabbles that are playing out within the British horse racing industry are reminiscent of watching one of those nature programmes on the TV following a pride of lions on the Serengeti.
The rains haven’t come in time and food is getting scarce. The lions are beginning to turn on each other as hunger bites and they must trek further and further each day in search of their prey.
Many of the stakeholders within racing - trainers, owners, racecourses, bookmakers and media companies - are now turning on each other in a similar manner as, for most of them, their single source of sustenance, the beleaguered punter is in short supply. They are all looking for a better share of the diminishing spoils and all the while the horse racing punter is fast becoming an endangered species.
With affordability checks and new gambling regulations on the horizon it has become apparent to these industry stakeholders that leaner times are around the corner. Everyone is blaming someone else for the situation they find themselves in, while at the same time looking for a bigger share of a dwindling pot.
The bookmakers ultimately pay the media rights to the racing industry. They do this through their picture deals to broadcast live racing to their customers based on betting turnover. As the turnover on horse racing betting is falling there is a knock-on effect across all the industry stakeholders.
The bookmakers are the apex predator in all of this. They are the ones that went out searching for the prey and then shared the spoils with the rest of the stakeholders. The financial model that underpins horse racing in Britain is hugely dependent on punters losing money betting on the sport.
Of course the bookmakers are not dependent on horse racing punters alone to sustain them. They have long since diversified into other areas, with Casino and other sports revenues now out-performing horse racing on their balance sheets. For many bookmakers horse racing is one of their least profitable lines as they are obliged to share too much of the pie back to the industry.
In contrast to the British situation, Irish racing has been largely cosseted from the harsh realities of declining betting turnover on the sport as Government handouts continue to mask the true situation.
The Horse Racing and Breeding industries in Ireland have flourished over the last twenty plus years of financial aid from government and not only have we seen the results on the track, where Irish-trained and bred horses now dominate at festivals like Cheltenham, but an unintended benefit has also been that Irish racegoers get a far better deal than their British counterpart when it comes to the cost of a day at the races.
There can be little doubt that the government's support, doled out by Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) in the form of prize money subsidies, has helped keep the admission prices down. If the Irish racecourses had to pump a significant portion of their Media Rights money back into prize money they would be more dependent on gate receipts and might not be as quick to open their doors for free. Only last week we saw Naas Racecourse offering free admission to patrons for their rescheduled Grade One meeting and Punchestown did the same on New year’s Eve.
For the upcoming Dublin Racing Festival at Leopardstown you can purchase a general admission ticket for both days for just €60. Compare this to the Cheltenham Festival the following month where a similar Tattersalls enclosure ticket is priced at £79 (€92) for one day.
Even with these competitively priced tickets to Irish racing the crowds are not exactly flocking to the tracks. I’d shudder to think what the attendance would be at the Dublin Racing Festival next month if it did cost €92 per day to attend.
Speaking of the Dublin Racing Festival, It’s status as a significant National Hunt meeting in the season is inextricably linked to the Cheltenham Festival. The more Leopardstown winners that go on to score at Cheltenham each year; the more the Dublin Racing Festival grows in importance. With that in mind, it is odd that there is currently no suitable race at the Leopardstown meeting for horses in the Stayers’ Hurdle division.
Of the 18 Irish-trained runners in the Stayers’ Hurdle at Cheltenham over the last three years, including the three winners, only one of those horses raced at the Dublin Racing Festival the previous month and in that case it was over fences rather than hurdles.
