Coast To Curragh cyclists arrive on course ahead of The Pat Smullen Cancer Trials Ireland Charity Race© Photo Healy Racing
Horse racing and its fans spend far too much of their time on the back foot trying to explain, defend and rationalise a myriad of bad news stories associated with the sport so it was nice to see some respite last week as the industry rallied round to support deserving causes.
The annual Hurling For Cancer match took place on Monday evening in Cullen Park, Carlow with a huge turnout including many stars from racing, GAA and the media in attendance. This event is the brainchild of racing’s Jim Bolger and Davy Russell and has raised well over €1 million for charity since its inception in 2011.
Saturday saw the third running of the Coast to Curragh cycle which now forms part of the Pat Smullen Raceday at the Curragh and raised €367,000 in its first two years. Early indications are that year three has been the most successful yet. Organisers of the event, which not only included the cycle from Laytown to the Curragh racecourse, but also an online auction, a lunch at the races and a charity race, expect the final figure from this year’s fundraising efforts to be in excess of €200,000.
The Coast to Curragh cycle event is in memory of Pat Smullen and Olive Lynch who both died from pancreatic cancer and all money raised goes to support Cancer Trials Ireland.
On Sunday at Naas racecourse the first leg of this year’s Corinthian Challenge took place. This event in aid of the Irish Injured Jockeys is in its sixth year and involves non-jockeys taking part in a three-race series where each participant commits to raising €10,000 for the jockeys’ charity.
These three different charity events have garnered fantastic support from within the industry and in particular I find it reassuring that the charity races seem to have no problem finding willing owners and trainers prepared to let their horses race for no prize money in aid of a good cause.
I’ve always felt that horse racing is a perfect vehicle for raising money and awareness for charities and it’s somewhat surprising that the industry doesn’t do more in this regard.
Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) seems to have a department for almost everything these days and it would make sense for them to have some staff skilled in helping racecourses and local groups organise similar charity events with a racing theme. These types of events take a lot of organising and as most tend to be one off efforts to raise money for a specific cause it would be very helpful if there was a central unit that could help with the process.
It must be close to twenty years ago that I made a suggestion to HRI to look into setting up lottery scratchcards to help raise funds for charities associated with the sport. The idea was something along the lines of the old Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake, except this time run as a non-profit enterprise, which I had thought could be of massive benefit to both worthy causes and horse racing’s profile.
A horse racing scratchcard sold in newsagents where 3 stars or horse shoes would enter the player into a draw to have a horse running for them in a big race would surely be far more enticing and exciting than getting to spin a wheel on a TV programme.
Imagine a monthly race taking place live on RTÉ during primetime viewing on a Friday or Saturday night where 14 individuals each had a horse running for them in a handicap at Dundalk and the winner stood to collect a million quid.
The 14 hopefuls and their families brought to the races for a VIP night out and interviewed in advance of the race on TV could be compulsive viewing and give the sport a level of mainstream exposure that is currently lacking.
With the proposed ban on gambling advertising a significant worry for the future exposure of the sport on television, now mightn’t be a bad time to revisit something like this which could enable the sport to stay relevant and portray a consistently positive image of racing to the wider public.
