Galway Races© Photo Healy Racing
It feels symmetrical the current preferred route for the proposed Galway Bypass running through where the notorious Galway Tent was situated. Bertie Ahern placed great store in building up Ireland's road structure during the Celtic Tiger years: now the site of that popular symbol of those flush years is destined to end up under asphalt. Meanwhile the Galway festival itself continues to thrive as Irish racing's most distinctive race meeting with its only real reference being itself.
Galway has often been used as a barometer for Irish racing's general health - and long before the Tiger years - but the reality is it is unique. What it has always done is provide a valuable boost in terms of profile as well as betting and attendance figures. The merit of taking big-picture conclusions from the week and placing them on the rest of racing is debatable since Galway's popularity has always been a self-perpetuating thing, removed from the usual considerations.
It was a perfect Tiger vehicle. It became a place to go even for those with little or no interest in racing. And it also became a place to go for those whose interest in the gee-gees coincided with having the funds to afford one.
It was remarkable at the time how many chose owning a horse as their financial extravagance. Hindsight makes it even more so. The Tiger's apotheosis came in 2007 when over 12,000 horses were in training here. And now the economy is supposedly on the up again, it is impossible to ignore how the horse population is only almost half that.
HRI's half-year statistical report shows 6,720 horses are in training in Ireland right now. The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that if the general economy is getting better, it still isn't better enough to allow Joe Public splash the cash on horses. And the resultant impact on those operating in the middle to lower market, either in terms of training, breeding or selling, is obvious. What will be very interesting though is if things continue to improve economically - will that urge to play the horse game re-emerge?
In some ways it will be a vital test of racing's financial model, the one where state aid is given to an industry which invests much of it in prizemoney, placing its faith in a 'trickle-down' economic model which at the moment isn't so much trickling as gushing towards a tiny elite of owners and trainers, both on the flat and over jumps: waters may be rising but they're hardly bringing all boats with them and how likely is it that they ever will again to the levels seen less than a decade ago.
One figure in HRI's report that got relatively overlooked was a massive 35.9 per cent rise in off-course Tote betting into Irish pools. That brought the tally for the first half of the year to E26.1 million. On course bookmaker betting for the same period was E34.7 million. HRI attributes the hike to "significant increases in betting into Irish pools by international operators." Coupled with reports the long-awaited Betting Bill is about to come into effect in August, it is surely time to recognise how the long term future of the betting jungle is located far beyond Ballybrit.
Those in- the-know digitally will tell you the surface has barely been scratched in terms of selling Irish racing to the world, and the revenue potential that brings. Now this space risks yet again flailing at a one-string banjo but surely the time is now to get racing's house in order so as to properly exploit that.
People outside Ireland are clearly prepared to bet on racing here. Instead of continuing to pour so much directly into prizemoney - up nearly ten per cent in the first half of 2015 - why not divert resources into investing in making the sport here as attractive as possible to those who want to bet on it, and in the process generate the finance to keep the ship afloat through its own product?
That doesn't mean prizemoney has to be neglected. It doesn't mean Capital Investment has to be either. But there's investment and there's strategic investment.
HRI has confirmed for instance that it is giving its own track at Navan a E100,000 plus capital development grant to improve racegoer facilities to the tune of E250,000 over the next three years. And it's impossible to quibble with improving things for racegoers. But then you notice the most significant element of the redevelopment involves improving the entrance to the car park, adding, as the PR bumph says, to the aesthetic dimension of the approach to the track.
In short, there's going to be a new gate, as in the age-old GAA tradition of sticking up a fancy new gate once there's a few quid to spare. Clearly no one going to Navan mistakes it for Ascot. But does that matter to those going to Navan? And of course a gate is a tangible thing, evidence of investment and all that: but there are so many intangibles money could be spent on which might pay off in future a lot more than concrete.
That was a hell of a King George finish between Postponed and Eagle Top: a pity then that in any logical disciplinary system the two of them would have been placed behind Romsdal. Andrea Atzeni and Frankie Dettori broke the rules to such an extent they wound up getting six and four days suspensions respectively. But of course the placings weren't changed and both jockeys would do the same again in a heartbeat given the circumstances.
That's the real doozy in all of this, the predictability of it. Just as the usual excuses are completely predictable, along with dire predictions of doom should logic apply. And it might get a little weird for a while - a short while - if logic was applied: and then jockeys would tailor their behaviour to circumstances in which flouting the rules didn't reward them.
