AS a Dubliner, and a Leeds United fan, it’s just as well Brian Kavanagh has Irish Champions Week as his sporting high this year. Of course, as chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland, he knows more than anyone that racing is more industry than sport.

He started in the business with no equine background, joining the Turf Club in 1989 after qualifying as an accountant. Five years later he became manager of Curragh Racecourse, before returning to the Turf Club in 1999 to be CEO. He moved to the same role in HRI in 2001.

He is also chairman of the European and Mediterranean Horseracing Federation, vice chairman of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (world body) and chairman of the European Pattern Race Committee.

DÓC: How are the emotions now with Irish Champions Week upon us?

BK: I’m feeling like a racecourse manager again. You get that buzz of excitement. You’re waking up in the morning looking out to see whether it’s rained the night before or not. Having lived with this thing since the start, and now it’s coming to fruition, you get nervous, you get excited. You’ve good news, bad news. It’s great and please God everything will work out on the day.

What was involved once it came to HRI?

There was a bit of politics but I would have to say that’s an area in which Irish racing co-operates very well. I had sight of the process of putting the British Champions Day together and that was torturous to some extent. In Ireland it was easier. The two racecourses very quickly started working together, complementing each other.

We were taking the five Group 1 races and putting them all on the one weekend. You had to get approval from the French and British authorities to do that. The next move was to get world class prize money to attract the horses. We set the racecourses very ambitious targets. We said we’d help with the prize money but they had to get sponsorship at a significantly higher level than they had done previously and they’ve done that. All 16 races over the weekend are sponsored and the prize money (€3.75m) speaks for itself.

Then there was a whole process of selling the idea to international horse people. That’s an ongoing process. We had Japanese entries. We won’t have Japanese runners this year but it’s something to work on for next year. We’re going to have some good French participation. The heads of the French and British racing authorities are coming over to the weekend. And then the practical issues of promoting the meeting.

You get a feel for something and this feels right. The Irish Champions Weekend concept has been accepted. The name feels as if it’s been around for years. So hopefully the idea is to take five meetings that were perhaps struggling on their own, put them together and package them as a single event that can be promoted and marketed both to international and domestic audiences.

Creating a good first impression is vital but what constitutes success?

The first thing I’ll say is it’s a long-term approach. It’s not going be measured on one single criteria in one single year. All the issues that we’ve touched on are important. To some extent, getting it established, getting Louis Romanet, the head of the world racing federation (IFHA) over to Ireland that weekend, linking it in with the Arc three weeks later, linking it in with the British Champions… we’re now in the position to do all that so that’s positive.

As well as significant sponsorship and prize money increases, getting good runners, competitive racing that’s a factor. And then there’s the factor of generating public interest and getting the public to support the meeting. It should be easier in year two as a lot of the groundwork will have been done and you’ll focus entirely on the race meeting.

How long will it take for a Triple Crown scenario to gain stature?

I would say that’s one of our number one priorities once we get this year’s meeting out of the way. The races are all there. You’ve got the Flying Five in Ireland which will be Group 2 from next year, you have the Abbaye three weeks later and you have the British Champion Sprint. So that’s your sprint category.

If you look at the middle-distance category you’ve got the Irish Champion at a mile and a quarter, the Arc at a mile and a half, and the British Champion a mile and a quarter, all within a six-week period. Go through the whole categories: you’ve two-year-old fillies, two-year-old colts. The scope to link all those is there.

It requires discussion with the other racing authorities. And it requires discussion with potential sponsors. I chair the European Pattern Committee and one of the major issues in the thinking of all these meetings is that we want the best horses in Europe to be racing in a grand finale to the European season before they go away and compete in the Breeders’ Cup, Australia, Japan or Hong Kong. With these three meetings now in situ, and it’s great that Ireland can put a meeting like that on par with the other two, we’ve 18 Group 1 races across all the categories. We have already started the ball rolling with the British and the French and have had a positive reaction. I think it’s very much achievable for next year.

Some of the initiatives being used to attract attendances can surely be used to address that problem elsewhere?

I think so. Attendance is a challenge now. The overall attendance figures are quite strong but I think that masks a situation – and it’s probably the same in a lot of other sports – where the bigger meetings are getting bigger and the smaller meetings are a challenge. The free students’ offer is a good offer because it’s sponsored. I wouldn’t be in favour of offering free admission altogether - I think that devalues the product but when it’s sponsored, that’s good.

We’ve had a very good summer on attendances, the figures at the half-year were good. There was a little standstill during the World Cup but since then and particularly Galway attendance was strong, but all the meetings around the summer period were strong. So our attendances are tracking at 6-7% ahead of last year.

But the summer meetings are not the ones that are a concern. The small tracks that race during the summer are doing very well. They still get crowds. A race meeting in Ballinrobe, Sligo or Roscommon, Laytown, Bellewstown is an event because there’s a scarcity value. They get the local crowd.

Where the work needs to go in is the tracks that are racing all year round. Leinster is an area that needs work. There’s a huge amount of problems, a huge amount of racing within a particular area and a huge amount of alternative sports offerings. The racecourses are working hard on that. They’re conscious that the media rights money is attractive and helpful but it’s not direct money that they get as a result of more people coming through the gate.

Racecourse facilities need improvement

Racecourses in the last 15 years have spent €206m on facilities and we’ve funded that practically 50-50; in that, we have three brand new racecourses - Cork, Limerick and Dundalk. We’ve done a lot of work at racecourses like Galway, Ballinrobe, Killarney. We’re working now on setting up the next tranche of a racecourse capital development scheme and hopefully between now and the end of this year we’ll be able to launch a new racecourse development scheme for the next five years where again, we’ll provide grant aid to approved projects.

There’s work to be done at the Curragh. There’s significant work to be done in Leopardstown and in Punchestown. The facilities will be improved but the challenge for the racecourses will be the offering for the customers within those facilities. Creating an atmosphere and making the racecourse a place that people want to go to. Leopardstown have done good work with their summer evening meetings and I always quote Ballinrobe as an example of where people want to go.

What is the Curragh timeline?

We’ve established a joint venture company with the Turf Club to look at the redevelopment of the Curragh. It’s the home of the classics, the home of flat racing in the country. It’s the track that gets the most international visitors and it doesn’t give a good impression. The challenge is to do it in a cost effective and sensible fashion. There’s no doubt we dodged a bullet with the previous scheme. It was too elaborate, typical of the times we were in and would be a white elephant if it was up there now.

Regarding the timetable, I would say we’ll be kicking on with the whole design and planning process over the coming months. When a sod will be turned? There’s issues to be resolved there working around the racing season. With that said, there’s a good window for work. Over the winter there’s a six-month shutdown period. You may do it in two tranches over two winters.

Are we any closer to resolving the funding issue?

I think we are. The key to resolving the funding for racing in my view has always been the broadening of the tax base for betting. Everybody was happy with the principal that betting tax be ringfenced to fund horseracing and greyhound racing in the country and when that system came in at 2001 it was perfect because the betting tax was generating £60-70m a year and that met the full needs.

Because betting tax fell and the rate was cut from 5% at that time, right back to 1%, the yield came down in the same way and the development of internet betting and telephone betting meant that an awful lot of it was outside the tax net. That meant that the yield went down to €25m and the government had to make up the shortfall.

We’ve been making the case that the yield from betting to the Exchequer, irrespective of what they do with it, is much, much lower than what it should be. Thankfully the Betting Amendment Bill, which in the course of the next four to six weeks when the Dáil resumes will go through, will capture tax from offshore betting so that will immediately increase the yield by about a third.

Then we would make the case that the rate is too low, which will again give the potential for the yield to grow. That’s the first step and it’s under way.

The second step is to put a development plan for the industry together which justifies that funding. I would always say racing is the type of industry that would help lead the recovery in the economy. It’s export-led – we export two-thirds of the horses that are born here. There’s foreign investment because all these big, foreign owners pay money to have horses here and there’s the jobs that go with that. It’s environmentally sound with low-intensive use of land. It’s labour-intensive; three jobs per horse – all of them in rural Ireland where alternatives are scarce.

If you were presenting a new idea for something that Ireland was going to be among the best in the world at it, it’s going to give you 16,000 jobs not in Dublin 4 or industrial estates around Dublin but all around the country. It’s going to generate a lot of international prestige for the country; it’s a no-brainer.

What we need now and will get now is a development strategy which can grow the industry. And that won’t happen without a base level of funding. But my point is it will ultimately save the Exchequer money as the government won’t have to put anything in.

As well as saving, you will actually generate more positive returns for the country?

If we’re talking about redeveloping the Curragh, you look at the level of construction jobs that would come out of that. There’s a huge yield back to the economy from that. And likewise, if we can encourage the next generation of major international owners to base their bloodstock here, that brings a huge employment dividend with it. Look at the huge impact Kildangan Stud has on the surrounding area. That’s the equivalent of a middle-eastern businessman deciding to set up a factory there and employing 200 people. That’s a case you always have to make.

The issue of doping has reared its head here this year

It’s a fundamental issue for racing, not just in Ireland, but worldwide. It was interesting as the various cases emerged in different countries how disparate the rules on something like steroids were around the world. If anything can come out of this, I think we have to on a global level push for a single set of rules on medication.

Domestically, it’s something that requires resources. We put a small amount of extra money into the drug-testing unit this year and it’s an area that will need further funding in the future to ensure our labs are up to scratch, to ensure that our level of policing is appropriate.

Irish trainers have more runners overseas in blacktype races than any other country in Europe. They’re all tested under the various regimes and there’s been no issue. So there’s no Irish issue here. It’s a global issue to be addressed.

I think the testing system for racing in Ireland and outside Ireland is fine. In Ireland, the winner of every race is tested. The first three in group races are tested and random horses elsewhere, I think it’s about 3,000 horses, are tested each year. What has changed is this whole area of out of competition testing; testing perhaps even before horses are in training, which they want to introduce in Britain. That’s a whole new area and it’s going require a whole new approach.

You have predicted a 100% growth in racing to becoming €2bn industry in five years. So you’re positive about the future obviously?

If we can get the funding and the structures developed, you will develop international investment here, develop the festival meetings and the spin-off into the rural economy. There’s huge scope for growth because this is a natural product Ireland produces that’s sought after worldwide. We need to develop that demand through promoting Irish horses in international markets, filter that demand back here where people will buy horses at sales and put horses in training with Irish trainers here. The record of Irish-trained horses internationally is phenomenal. It really is its biggest advertisement.

I’m a great believer in that there is more scope to be got out of the racing festivals. If you look at the impact of Galway, Punchestown, Leopardstown, that can be developed even further. Look at Listowel. The contribution of that to the north Kerry economy and the economy of Listowel town is huge.

We have seen with the recent announcements regarding the sprint pattern that your international work complements what you do in Ireland

I’ve got sucked into a number of those international groups and I think it’s good to be able to get in there to try and drive some things on a more international level. They’re very complementary because it was definitely a help with the Irish Champions Weekend. The sprint programme, we needed that, but what amazed me was that it wasn’t just an Irish issue. If you look at the global rankings for the last 10 years, taking the top three and equals in the sprint category, there were 35 horses in that and only one was European-trained. That was Starspangledbanner and he was mainly Australian. The rest were Australian, far eastern, American horses. So clearly there was an issue there.

And when you dug into it, there is no programme in Britain, Ireland or France for three-year-old sprinters. If you have a horse that can’t get further than six furlongs, in the spring of your three-year-old career, you have to either stretch that horse over seven and run it in the Tetrarch or Craven, or if you want to run in six or five, you have to run against the older horses.

So we put a new programme of three-year-old only sprints, culminating in a new Group 1 race in Ascot and Ascot dug very deep to fund it. That’ll be run on the Friday of Royal Ascot. Separately from that we upgraded a number of other sprints. Also, Ireland had no sprint above Group 3 level, even though we’ve had very successful sprinters. So something had to be done. So we got three of our races upgraded to Group 2 and obviously we’d have ambitions to get one of those up to Group 1.

It’s not the only category with a problem. The other area we’re looking at is the three-year-old middle-distance runner. Again, it’s not just an issue with the Irish Derby. It’s an issue across Europe.

Have the critics got it wrong about the Irish Derby?

The Irish Derby is always an interesting race. They were unlucky Kingston Hill dropped out. They lost Sea The Stars and New Approach at similar late stages in their years and that has affected the competitiveness of the race. But that’s not just an issue for the Irish Derby. The French Derby’s change of distance is an issue. And in general, that category of races is under pressure. It seems that there’s a narrower concentration of those horses. There’s a whole load of deep issues there but it’s definitely something that merits examination, so (HRI’s director of racing) Jason Morris is working away now with his counterparts in Britain and France to look at various options.

You must be looking forward to the weekend?

I’m obviously looking forward to the weekend but I’m also looking forward to addressing the long-term funding issues of the industry. I’m very much looking forward to getting stuck into the redevelopment of our racecourses including the Curragh and further upgrading our racecourses. Strategic plan for the industry, success on the track for Irish horses – we need to drive that.

There’s a whole host of areas to be addressed in terms of welfare of jockeys, welfare of horses, work on the infrastructure of the industry, the Equine Centre – all those issues are forming the thinking behind our strategic plan. And working with the racecourses to get the fun element into going racing. That’s a key aspect.