THE Irish Racehorse Trainers Association believes it has scored an important victory by insisting that the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board takes blood from all runners rather than selected runners if carrying out pre-race tests.

Rules allowing officials to take pre-race blood tests are in place and the testing could start at any time. A number of trainers believe that taking blood before a race can upset horses and therefore places them at a disadvantage compared to their rivals.

Jessica Harrington believes a pre-race test by the British Horseracing Authority on her filly Millisle may have cost her victory in a Group 3 race two years ago.

Michael Grassick, CEO of the IRTA, said: “My British counterpart Rupert Arnold told me he gets a lot of complaints from trainers on this subject and he said it was very important that we get that concession that either every horse is tested or none.

“It has been reported that we [IRTA] have delayed the implementation of pre-testing here but, as far as I know, we agreed all of this with the IHRB in November 2019, so it has not been delayed by trainers.”

Declarations

Meanwhile, getting Horse Racing Ireland [HRI] to start taking entries on Fridays for some midweek racing will be high on the agenda when the IRTA meets HRI in the coming days.

The trainers have had to accept this week’s HRI decision to make 48-hour declarations a permanent feature of Irish racing. The measure was introduced in June 2020 to aid the resumption of racing during the pandemic.

It proved so popular with the betting industry and other stakeholders that HRI has decided to keep it in place. However, the IRTA says it will lead to trainers having to waste owners’ money making unnecessary entries.

Grassick explained: “At the moment you have to make entries on a Thursday for the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of the following week. If the entry deadline could be pushed back to noon on Friday then trainers would know what’s running over the weekend before they made entries.

“It’s also an issue early in the week. On Mondays you have to make entries for Friday meetings. But when you are making weekend entries on Tuesdays, you still don’t know the balloting numbers for the Friday fixture. Trainers need that information earlier.”

Commercial reasons

Explaining the decision to make 48-hour declarations permanent, HRI’s director of racing Jason Morris said: “The HRI board accepted that there were many positive reasons for retaining 48-day declarations on a permanent basis. Significant commercial, marketing and operational benefits have been identified including the promotion of our sport by media and the betting industry.

“48-hour declarations are considered essential by our media rights partners when it comes to maximising our income streams from international markets, thereby driving revenues for racecourses as well as increasing the exposure of our horses for export purposes. Their permanent retention had support from associations representing racecourses, owners, and stable staff, all of whom identified the positive benefits of being able to plan further ahead.

“The Jockeys Association and IHRB senior medical officer are also strongly supportive from a health and welfare perspective as it gives more notice to jockeys of their required riding weights and doubles the time available for them to manage any required weight loss.

“While there has been an anticipated increase in non-runners, the overall effect has not been significant as our reserve system allows for replacements – the net percentage of non-runners has only increased by 0.10 runners per race from 2019 to 2021 against the background of average field sizes increasing overall from 11.5 to 12.3 runners per race over this period.

“We acknowledge the concerns of the trainers and owners associations around the timetable for making entries and we will explore with the IRTA and AIRO whether beneficial changes can be made to the current entry schedule.”