LAST summer Sport for Business included Horse Racing Ireland’s new chief financial officer Suzanne Eade among the top 50 most influential women in Irish sport.

Sports-mad Eade was only a month into her new job and, still learning about racing, must have been surprised and thrilled to be listed alongside Katie Taylor, Sonia O’Sullivan and the Turf Club’s Meta Osborne.

“If you had told me when I was in school I would end up working in professional sport in Ireland I would have said that was my dream job,” she says.

Originally from Dublin, Eade became a certified accountant and worked in the UK and Geneva before returning to Ireland in 2005. Before joining HRI she was with the pharmacy chain Boots Retail for three and a half years as finance director.

“I joined there in the middle of the recession when customer sentiment was at an all-time low,” she recalls. “There was a big focus on value for money and we had to do a lot of work around pricing, promotion and customer offering to retain and win customers.”

Tough times which, she believes, stood her in good stead for her next role in racing. “In Boots you knew on a Sunday night what your sales figures were for the previous week and you had to have answers for Monday morning.

“Moving from the private sector to a semi-state body has not been that difficult. They are both large organisations. HRI is procedural based – we move quickly on some things and there are other areas in which we move less quickly due to governance issues but that is only right.”

At HRI Eade took over from the retiring Margaret Davin, who had been in the role for 15 years. “I had to give three months’ notice in my last job but I met Margaret every week during that time. She shared things with me, answered my questions and I was lucky to inherit a great team in HRI’s finance and procurement department, and more recently IT.”

So what exactly do they do? Well, there are three main finance areas: internal budgets for the various HRI departments, external finance for racecourse grants and other industry bodies, plus handling client accounts (prize money and entry costs) for owners, trainers and jockeys. Procurements are responsible for ensuring HRI follows regulations and gets value for money. The IT function develops and supports both HRI’s internal and customer-facing platforms.She first explains how the internal finance works. “Each department comes to me with their spending requirements for the coming year. I will already know what they have in mind as we have a working strategic plan and we don’t like to get diverted from those objectives unless there is a good reason. We have regular reviews and then we make a full presentation of the budget to the HRI board”

As an executive officer Eade is not a member of the board but attends the monthly meetings to present the figures. “The board often challenges us on all areas of funding; as they want to ensure that investment into areas delivers a strong return for the industry. They can be long meetings. It amazes me how so many industry professionals give up their time to sit on the board for the industry’s benefit. You wouldn’t see it to the same extent in other sports.”

RACECOURSE GRANTS

Recently HRI has been allocating capital development grants to virtually every racecourse in the country. Tramore recently got approval for a €1 million project and Punchestown has a €6 million plan in the pipeline. Naas (€4.5 million), Fairyhouse, Galway and a raft of smaller tracks are all set to benefit though they must put up 60% of the fund themselves.

Eade explains the strategy: “No matter how much you are paying to go racing the raceday experience has to be attractive. Attendance is hugely dependent on the weather but it helps if the pricing, the catering and the facilities are right.”

She says that HRI has faith that racegoers – and owners – will return to the sport as their financial circumstances allow. It is HRI’s job to make sure the sport remains as attractive to them as going to any other major sporting event or investing in a different recreational activity.

“There is a lot of due diligence in the capital development programme. We only give out grants when we are happy with the racecourse’s business plan and they don’t always like it when I ask them for more information. Tracks have to be held accountable. If they say they are going to increase attendances by a certain amount then I will be on their case to see if those targets were met. There has to be that tension there or else you are being unfair to those who weren’t successful in applying for funding.”

Eade is big on KPIs key performance indicators. “I’ve never known any other way,” she says. Yes, sometimes you have to invest in things “for the good of the industry” but it’s important to have measurable targets to keep the ship on course.

“Recently I developed a monthly scorecard with the senior management team. What are the things we want to measure? Attendances, average number of runners in a race, number of horses in training, and so on. Are we in the green or the red? It keeps us on track and means we’re very focused at meetings.”

Strategic planning is a huge part of the job. A lot of work has gone into finding the cash to fund the racecourse grants so that borrowing can be kept to a minimum. “Our current strategic plan runs from 2015 to 2020 but we are already looking beyond that, to 2025.”

At the same time HRI has to be able to adapt to changing circumstances. The industry-wide Anti-Doping Task Force filed its report last February and more resources are needed to protect racing’s image and keep illegal drugs out of the sport. “The requirements around integrity have changed hugely in the past year,” Eade admits. “We always had it in the plan but it has gone to a different level.”

There is also the €60 million Curragh redevelopment coming down the tracks – HRI will own 33% of the new facility and has three members on the Curragh board: Joe Keeling, Brian Kavanagh and Eimear Mulhern.

“In terms of releasing HRI funds to the Curragh, there is a big appraisal process so we have to make sure they have a good business plan. I think it’s going to be great when it’s done but it’s been difficult because of the planning uncertainty.”

BLOODSTOCK SALES

Soon HRI will publish its half-yearly industry statistics and the resurgence in bloodstock sales will probably be very prominent on the press release. HRI has been increasing its support for the bloodstock sector, most obviously through Irish Thoroughbred Marketing, but also by backing the Plus 10 bonus scheme.

Eade says: “It’s about getting the balance right between driving export sales for our breeders, which is key, while also keeping the good horses here. It’s a big balancing act for the organisation. The dream would be to see Irish horses sold to foreign buyers who then decide to keep their horses in training in Ireland.”

She is very complimentary about the ITM team. “Their language capabilities are phenomenal and they give up so much of their personal time to get buyers to come to Ireland. They travel huge distances, it’s not first-class by any means, and the destinations are often not that glamorous. They’re an extremely dedicated bunch.”

Recruiting owners is HRI’s single biggest problem. “It’s starting to come back as people recover from the recession,” she says. “A lot of smaller owners were badly affected by the downturn and there is a definite timelag between coming out of recession and being able to spend on a luxury items such as racehorses.”

From surveying current and lapsed owners, HRI has identified some areas in need of attention. Presumably costs, facilities and the struggle to compete with the top names were high on that list. “We can’t solve everything but I’d expect the reasonable things to be addressed.”

As a sports fanatic Eade is looking forward to the Olympics and Wimbledon. She and her New Zealand-born husband are constantly on the hunt for rugby tickets, but racing is now her number one interest. “I live and breathe it,” she says, “though I know I have a lot still to learn.”

She has a soft spot for the jockeys. “The majority of them are so modest, and have such respect for trainers and owners, or at least that’s how I see it.” Unsurprisingly she picks out Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh as among her favourites. “They are so fearless under pressure and yet so feminine,” she says.

Nina and Katie might not have made it into the top 50 most influential women in Irish sport, but the racing industry can be sure that HRI’s chief financial officer is a passionate racing fan and not just a number cruncher.

BREXIT fears

In the short-term we need sterling to stabilise and in the long-term we need to know our bloodstock can be exported to Britain without tariffs.

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

I regularly took work home in my old job but not so much now. I don’t miss the trips to the UK every other week either. I’m happy to go racing at weekends and not just to the big meetings. You have to see the industry days too.

BETTING

I am allowed to bet but not when I am working. I rarely bet on a favourite and always back each-way. I’m fairly successful at it.

OTHER SPORTS

Rugby and golf are my favourites. My sister says I’m strange because I spend more on rugby tickets than handbags. I’ve been to a Lions Tour, a Rugby World Cup final and semi-final. My husband and I also went to the US Open tennis final one year as we just happened to be in New York and the match was delayed due to rain and tickets were available.