THERE is a risk when it comes to sticking your head above the parapet. Criticism invariably follows. The motivation is often considered egotistical, or just the actions of a whinging crank.
Francis Hyland speaks out an awful lot. He doesn’t need any prompting when it comes to proffering an opinion on how racing can improve. To his mind, the ways are many and varied.
The irony is that the honorary secretary of the Irish National Bookmakers Association (he says he doesn’t even claim expenses) doesn’t consider himself a risk-taker at all, just an idealist. He acknowledges that idealism doesn’t always translate to the real world. Pragmatism invariably sees to that. Hyland accepts that many of his proposals might be considered daft but his key aim, he says, is to stave off stagnancy. To spark discussion and debate that will produce solutions to at least some of the ills.
He doesn’t want to present himself as some white knight for the industry. His raison d’être is to ensure the bookies’ welfare. But a healthy racing industry and a public that is well catered for is good for the layer.
Hyland has been in the news recently, after being awarded €23,992 in damages in the High Court, following his long-running test case challenging Dundalk’s demand that bookies pay €8,000 as a capital contribution to the €35m redevelopment of the venue in 2007.
Judge Gerard Hogan came down on his side when it came to the legitimacy of his claim but was not so generous when awarding damages, arguing that the bookie could have taken steps to minimise his losses.
TEST CASE
“I was a test case for 33 bookmakers who were, I believe, wrongly, and the court has confirmed that, deprived of our seniorities at Dundalk,” explains Hyland. “The High Court has found that we were entitled to our seniorities and Dundalk were not entitled to recharge us for the seniority that gave us our pitches there.
“I then sought damages. I got €23,992. Now, with every ray of sunshine, a little rain must fall. I claimed €48,000. I claimed €20,000 for my pitch and €28,000 loss of earnings. We had a professional person to value the pitches but the judge said that the recession had reduced the price of pitches and he gave me €15,000 for that.
“On the loss of earnings, he only gave me the first year’s loss of earnings in full and 20% of my loss of earnings in subsequent years because he said I had failed to mitigate my losses. Therefore, I only ended up getting half my claim.
“So it’s disappointing but I fully accept what the judge has said and I’m happy with the verdict.”
He is relieved that what has been a very stressful period is at an end.
“I don’t really want to go through it again. I didn’t want to go through it in the first place. I can honestly tell you I made every effort to settle this case. I made efforts right through the whole period to settle this case. Even just over a year ago, before it came to court, we tried to settle it but I failed. I didn’t want to go to court. I certainly didn’t want to go to court against a racecourse.
“We settled our case very early with the AIR and we didn’t claim any damages or any costs or anything from the AIR.
“My view and the view of my colleagues is we don’t want to sue racecourses. We earn our living on racecourses. We have a great appreciation of what racecourses do for us. It wasn’t pleasant to sue Dundalk. I didn’t want to do it but I had no option because effectively, Dundalk was threatening my access to every racecourse in the country.
“If they did it, the Curragh would do it after their development. Leopardstown are doing a development, we’d lose it there. So our backs were put up against the wall. But it was with great reluctance that I took the case. I didn’t want to.”
UNDUE PRICE INFLUENCE
There is another dispute brewing however, as Hyland alleges that the Professional Bookmakers Association and Satellite Information Systems are exerting an undue influence on prices. (The PBA strongly refute the allegation). He and Padraic Carty are pursuing an action against the PBA and SIS (individually, not as representatives of the INBA) but Hyland is hopeful that the matter will be resolved without recourse to the courts.
Until last year, SIS used information from INBA members, by way of a sample from the ring taken without any other party’s knowledge by HRI, to determine betting shows and SPs. The contract is now with PBA and Hyland claims that while HRI are still responsible for the SP sample, PBA is selecting the sample for shows, that the sample is only being taken from PBA members and that PBA members are aware of who is in the sample.
“I have seen with my own eyes, off-course hedging, backing a horse at 5/2 when there’s 3/1 available in the ring. And that horse is returned at 9/4 even though there was 3/1 in the ring.
“So what they’re doing is, if you don’t join the PBA, you can’t get in the sample. If you can’t get in the sample, you are deprived of the hedging money coming in from off the track. It makes no difference if David Hyland is going 12/1 on a horse in Punchestown, it returns at 6/1. Irrespective of what price we go, we can’t get this business.
“I’m only looking for two things. An undertaking that Horse Racing Ireland appoint the bookmakers to go into the sample for the shows, that there’s no bookmaker involvement in that process. And that SIS give an undertaking that its staff won’t reveal the identity of the bookmakers in the shows to anyone.
“I’m only worried about bookmakers, that we’re deprived of this business. But consumer welfare can only be protected by those two things being implemented. It won’t cost any money because it was the way it was done at the beginning of last year. It was standard practice. I think that’s essential for the wellbeing of the ring and as a result, the wellbeing of the customer.”
NOBODY’S FOOL
He may be too opinionated and vociferous for a lot of people and has never shied away from rattling cages but Francis Hyland is nobody’s fool. He worked in the London Stock Exchange from 1968 to 1974 before taking a leave of absence to write a history of the Irish Derby. That work was produced in association with Guy Williams and an updated version is scheduled to celebrate the 150th running of the classic this year. He decided to use his numbers nous in a different way and took out a bookmaking permit in 1975.
“I’m a figures man. I’m an old-fashioned bookmaker. To be honest, my style of bookmaking is probably dead for all time because I don’t take risk. Well, I have to take some kind of risk but I play odds. I take risk when I have the odds in my favour. I try not to gamble.”
As the Irish Derby history attests to, Hyland is a bookmaker in every sense. He is also the author of a history of the Galway Races, as well as Taken For a Ride, a look at the history of betting which includes the interesting nugget that tic-tac was invented on the floor of the Melbourne Stock Exchange. Apparently, Australian soldiers taught it to their Irish counterparts during World War I and it was first utilised by bookies at Shelbourne Park Greyhound Stadium in the 1920s. No wonder Francis moved seamlessly from being a stockbroker to a bookie.
He is the bookmakers’ representative on the HRI board now and is constantly agitating for change. Key to that, he feels, is a streamlining of the organisation.
“I agree with the principal of Horse Racing Ireland. There should be a fixtures committee and all the other committees. There should be an overall board of no more than seven and they should be all independent of racing. Because there is too much vested interest in the committees and what they say goes to the board and it’s just rubber-stamped.
“So I firmly believe we need an independent board. You have the industry doing things like producing the fixture list but it has to be cleared by the independent board, appointed by the minister. That’s what we need.
“I’m not criticising vested interest. I’m vested interest. All vested interests have a legitimate interest but shouldn’t be able to decide on their own vested interest. Be it bookmaking, fixtures, prize money – the final seal of approval should come from an independent board.”
He has a view on so much and offers most of it unprompted. Too many Group 1 and Grade 1 contests, too many champion labels for horses in any given season. Building multi-million euro grandstands in redeveloped racecourses is a waste of time he maintains, given that most people watch the action on a big screen now.
SECONDARY CIRCUIT
There is, he argues, an urgent need for a premier circuit and a secondary circuit, with reflective prize money, to give lesser horses more opportunities which they just aren’t getting now due to the dominance of the Mullins, Gigginstown, McManus operations. This, he is quick to add, isn’t their fault. But it’s tough to snatch a maiden hurdle or bumper at Kilbeggan when you’re encountering a Closutton-trained machine “bought for €400,000!” Or running into a future Guineas winner in Killarney. Two circuits, with lower prize money in the second tier to make it less attractive for the major players, would increase competitiveness at all levels he feels.
The growth of betting shops is the biggest threat to the on-course bookmaker, he insists. Much more so than the exchanges.
“They have stuck in betting shops in the prime locations on the racecourse. They have gone from a normal size betting shop to a bigger shop. They gave the operator a monopoly. He is under no code of practice. He can make up any rules he likes. And now he’s being allowed to take single bets.
“And we are out on Stephen’s Day in driving wind and rain trying to compete and he’s feeding off our prices. How can we survive?
“I still maintain the prices in the betting ring are healthy prices. The exchange has a commission and some people are paying 20% commission on the exchanges. So betting on the exchange is not a great option for them.
“There is a market for our services. I still do a sizeable number of bets every year, even though my turnover is substantially down. I still have customers. But it’s tough because we don’t have the bodies in front of us. And they’re being sucked away.”
The statistics released this week by HRI indicate a 4% increase in total and average attendances but the festivals are largely holding their own, Irish Champions Weekend increased two fixtures thanks to a mammoth investment in promotion and Galway continues to stagger with the numbers it attracts.
But racing rarely makes the mainstream media for positive reasons and there are many fixtures where the proverbial one man and his dog are looking on.
“We have a great battle for customers. Interest in racing, in my opinion is in decline. I notice space devoted to racing in newspapers is shrinking by the year. The big days are not getting bigger. They’re holding their own to some extent. But even take Irish Derby day. There were more bookmakers in Roscommon on the Monday than there were at the Curragh on Derby day. It is incredible. Ordinary people now don’t know who the favourite for the Derby is. That’s damaging.”
He is not a fan of the promotion of the social element of racing.
“People go racing to see horses racing. It’s the races that bring people. It’s not the circus, the best dressed woman… they’ll bring them occasionally but people go to see live action racing. Therefore, that’s what we should be promoting.
“Fifty years ago most Irish people had some knowledge of horses. You now have huge swathes of the population that won’t know anything about a horse. They’ll know the difference between a horse and an elephant and that’s about it. So they need to be attracted to racing by horses.
“Danoli was a people’s horse. Every time the horse ran it brought a thousand people racing and they all backed him. We’re desperately in need of horses like that, that catch the imagination of the public. Sea The Stars was the nearest to that but we have lacked that to some extent, particularly on the flat in recent years.”
He acknowledges that everything he says is motivated by self-interest, but a good product is beneficial to everyone involved and so ideas are needed. And with Francis Hyland around, there will never be a shortage of those.
COMMENTS
“If you want fair play, then someone has to stand up. When you stand up for things, you irritate people who are advantaged by the system that’s in operation and you’re spoiling the party.”
“In my heyday bookmaking, I would lay most of the horses in every race. Now there are half the field I will never lay unless they spring. There’s half the field no-one wants to back.”
“We’re feeling the pinch. Of course bookmakers are not good PR. Basically everyone hates the bookie. It may not be a vindictive hate but the idea is that nobody feels sorry when the bookie gets a kick up the behind.”
“The secret of bookmaking always was to disguise the horse that had no chance from the punter. But now there’s no disguising. So you’re now betting on fewer runners.”
“I do accept a lot of what I say may be idealistic but I am producing ideas… whether they are practical or not is another matter! I am a great believer in giving out ideas and even if they’re off the wall and ridiculous, it doesn’t make a difference. It gets people thinking. They might say ‘that’s a stupid idea Francis, but maybe this will work.’”