THE Association of Irish Racehorse Owners has expressed deep concern over a proposal from the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association to centralise the payment of training fees through Horse Racing Ireland.

Trainers want to introduce this system in a bid to reduce the amount of bad debts and also to prevent ‘rogue’ racehorse owners from moving horses to new trainers and leaving old bills unpaid.

Aiden Burns, AIRO manager, said: “Our council has not yet discussed it formally but I know, from speaking to our chairman Brian Polly and vice-chairman John Weld, that in general we would be opposed to bills being paid through HRI. We appreciate that some trainers have experienced bad debts but that is a matter between them and their clients.”

The owners fear that a centralised payments system, as suggested, could place owners in a vulnerable position with trainers effectively controlling the owners’ animals. “You could have all kinds of legal disputes,” Burns added. “It would be difficult to adjudicate or arbitrate – my personal view is that it would be messy.”

Michael Grassick, IRTA chief executive, said: “Not one trainer at our recent meeting objected to the plan, and I believe trainers in Britain are looking for this too. We are pursuing this because of the bad debts accumulated by trainers in recent years, particularly during 2007-’08. We want to stop that from happening again and we want to offer more protection to the trainer. If bills are unpaid the horse can move yard but it should not be allowed to race.”

Explaining how the system might work, Grassick said: “As usual an itemised bill would go to the owner. HRI would only be notified of the total owed. If by, say, 21 days there was no query from the owner then the amount owed would be transferred from the owner’s HRI account to that of the trainer. Obviously there would have to be a system in place for disputes.

“There is still a lot of work to be done on this between ourselves and HRI. The key is that it would have to be compulsory. Many trainers would find it difficult to ask long-standing owners to enter into this arrangement but if it was compulsory then there would be no objections.”

HRI’s chief financial officer Suzanne Eade told The Irish Field last week that the semi-state body was keen to support trainers but that agreements between trainers and owners would be required before a payments systems could be put in place.