THE incessant rain over the past month has cost the racing industry in the region of €500,000 in lost media rights and prize money alone.
Hardest hit have been Cork and Limerick racecourses, each losing two fixtures. With SIS paying €6,000 per race for media rights, both those tracks have lost over €80,000 each in revenue – that figure not including turnstile receipts which would have been lucrative over the Christmas period.
Brian Kavanagh, chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland, said: “The weather is a nightmare, particularly in the southern part of the country. The problem is that the storms are coming one after the other denying us the opportunity to reschedule lost fixtures and putting the prize money back into circulation. It’s very tough on the racecourses affected.”
HRI has done its best to reschedule the cancelled meetings. Jason Morris, HRI’s director of racing, said: “We have been able to reschedule every fixture where the racecourse has looked for a new date, Tramore moving to a week on Sunday and Thurles to next Friday. We will be evaluating with Cork early next week whether they can reschedule but their flooding has been very bad so they may not be in a position to do so.
“The priority has been to save the graded races and thankfully we were able to do this with a number of transfers. Most categories of the horse population will be catered for if the existing and rescheduled fixtures go ahead so we are hoping that the new year will bring us more favourable weather conditions.”
Michael Grassick, chief executive of the trainers’ association, said: “HRI have been very good and I’m sure they will find spaces in the calendar for replacement dates when the weather improves. It’s better to take the pain now rather than forcing tracks to stage racing on bad ground and cause long-term damage.”
After seeing Limerick’s four-day Christmas meeting cut in half, manager Conor O’Neill told the Limerick Leader: “We were very disappointed not to race on St Stephen’s Day. We envisaged a bumper crowed of around 15,000 people. Hospitality was sold out and we were all ready for a bumper day. Unfortunately the weather took a very bad turn late on Christmas night and early next morning.”
Up to 50 staff then worked through the night to get the course in fit racing condition for Sunday, December 27th. “We had a great crowd on Sunday. The official attendance was 10,243 which was up nearly 3,000 on last year.”
Flooding at Cork was so severe that, after the Blackwater River burst its banks, only the tops of the fences remained above water. Today’s fixture was cancelled last Tuesday. Manager Michael O’Neill said: “This was one of our bigger floods. In the past 15 days we have had almost six inches of rain. The water will leave debris on the track and it will take time to recover. We’re not applying for another meeting in the short-term.”
O’Neill added: “Losing the Hilly Way meeting (December 6th) and our New Year meeting will have a substantial cost. The TV money and the clean-up costs alone will make it six figures and we would have expected good attendance at those two meetings.”
Tramore’s New Year’s Day meeting was lost to waterlogging and has been rescheduled for Sunday, January 10th. Thurles cannot race next Monday (January 4th) and that meeting moves to Friday, January 8th.
There are no point-to-points this weekend. Today’s Dromahane meeting (originally scheduled for December 30th) was abandoned yesterday and Sunday’s Lisgoold (Templenacarriga) fixture has been postponed until Saturday, January 9th.
NEXT WEEK’S FIXTURES