Records are there to be broken

The US Masters Golf was a great watch last week despite the persistent weather interruptions. The best golfers on the planet competing on one of the best courses is only a part of what makes the Masters so special. The myriad of unique traditions that are associated with the event are what really elevates it to its iconic status.

Horse racing is another sport steeped in tradition. The Irish Grand National is a prime example of a horse race with a long and proud history. The race itself hasn’t changed much over time - the number of competitors has been restricted to 30 for a couple of decades and the race is one furlong longer that it was pre-1991, but otherwise it’s more or less the same race Arkle won in 1964 and remarkably has been taking place at the same venue and on the same date in the calendar for over 150 years.

You would think that by now it would be ‘the race that stops a nation’, but while sponsors Boylesports and Fairyhouse themselves put huge efforts into promoting the event it doesn’t attract the sort of crowds that a historic sporting occasion such as this warrants.

This year’s attendance was a very healthy 16,195, which according to the racecourse’s social media is a “record breaking crowd” but of course it’s not. It is in fact one of the lower attendances in recent memory.

During this century the Irish Grand National attendance has been falling in line with most of the other big race days across the country. 23,500 people turned up to see Commanche Court win the race in 2000. 18,703 were there when Point Barrow prevailed in 2006. Thunder And Roses victory in 2015 was watched by 16,621, some 426 more people than turned up to see this year’s race.

Falling attendances have been a trend across the industry for many years and there is no particular reason why Fairyhouse’s big day would be immune to the decreasing numbers so it’s somewhat baffling as to why the racecourse would trumpet this year’s number of 16,195 as a record breaking crowd.

Perhaps it has something to do with the 'reset' the industry seems to have embraced following the Covid pandemic. Horse Racing Ireland has latched on to this statistical panacea whereby all current data is only compared to the pre-pandemic numbers of 2019. From a statistical point of view it suits the semi-state body to use 2019 as the benchmark that all current numbers are compared to and perhaps the racecourses are cottoning on to this as well.

The Irish Grand National itself was a strange race. They seemed to go a sensible gallop and as a consequence there were no casualties on the first circuit, but remarkably just 6 of the 27 runners completed the course. With prize money being paid down to 10th place you would expect a few more would have completed in their own time rather than being pulled up, but in these politically sensitive times for the sport it was probably just as well that they didn’t.

The University College Cork (UCC) students’ union decision last week to no longer condone or promote events involving horse racing or gambling on animals shows the power that minority groups can have.

The UCC students’ union reached the decision after balloting its members on foot of a petition from the UCC Vegan Society which argued that the horse racing industry “knowingly and willingly partakes in the mistreatment and abuse of animals.”

Cancel culture is rife within third level institutions and there must be strong peer pressure on students to fall into line behind often radical opinions. Many of the students that voted in favour of this ban are probably the same revellers that had a brilliant day out at Limerick Races only the previous week.

I suppose the industry can take some solace from the fact its marketing campaigns to attract younger racegoers have at least registered with their target audience. More worryingly, these college students will in all likelihood be the policy makers of the future and it doesn’t bode well for an industry with a financial model that is built almost entirely around government subsidies.

Lastly, Gordon Elliott’s interview with Gary O’Brien on Racing TV following the death of Mighty Potter did little more than add fuel to the anti-racing and more specifically anti-Gordon brigade. Everyone deals with loss differently and it’s unfair to draw any conclusions from these types of interviews. Elliott took a pragmatic approach which is what you would expect from a man who is effectively the CEO of a large operation and needs to rally his troops as he knows the show must go on the next day.

The one thing Gordon Elliott appears to be is a very good boss. Most of his staff have stuck with him for years and I’d have little doubt that once the dust settled he took time out to console both the rider and the staff members that tended to the ill-fated Mighty Potter.