THIS afternoon’s card at Fairyhouse plays host to one of the last notable Grand National trials in the Bobbyjo Chase which has also acted as an occasional Gold Cup warm-up with both Forget The Past (2006) and On His Own (2014) winning the race before reaching the frame in the Cheltenham feature.

When On His Own won the race, it was worth a total of €40,000 and Forget The Past ran for €50,000 a week after also winning the Red Mills Chase.

Today the Bobbyjo will boast a prize fund of €28,500 which represents an increase of €1,000 on last year but apart from this year and 2021 the race has been run for at least €40,000 each year throughout the last decade.

Sobering

The Bobbyjo is by no means alone as a graded race which was has seen its value drop significantly over the last 15 years or so but these figures make for sobering reading to say the very least. By way of context the last time before 2021 that the Bobbyjo prize fund dipped below €40,000 was in 2011 when The Midnight Club triumphed in a race that was run for €37,500.

At the time the 2011 edition took place when the economic outlook for this country was bleak to say the least.

Move forward in time and we are talking about a 24% decrease in value over the space of 11 years. Over the course of this 11 years, various costs associated with keeping horses have only been going one way and it certainly hasn’t gotten any easier or cheaper to acquire the raw material to run in these races.

These are sobering times and we seem to be inexorably approaching a point where prize money is again going to become a pressing issue in this jurisdiction.