LAST weekend saw Jessica Harrington’s Silence Please run a fine race to finish fourth to the John Gosden-trained Miss Yoda in the Group 1 Preis der Diana at Dusseldorf.

In what is proving to be yet another tremendous season for her trainer Silence Please was a first runner in Germany for Mrs Harrington and little wonder that she made the lengthy trek to Rhine-Ruhr region given that there was a first prize in excess of £250,000 on offer for the German Oaks. Last month the similarly well endowed Derby Italiano attracted several challengers from Britain with Mark Johnston’s King’s Caper just touched off by the chief home hope Tuscan Gaze.

Both of these European classics don’t quite carry the prestige or allure of those in Britain, Ireland or France but they stand up to the closest scrutiny when it comes to prize money.

In Germany last Sunday, Miss Yoda picked up a cheque that was in excess of £100,000 more than what Love secured with her tour de force in the Epsom Oaks. Meanwhile, the Italian Derby’s first prize was just over £10,000 less than that earned by Serpentine when he won at Epsom.

In this Covid-19 hit season prize money has taken a battering on many fronts and Ireland is no different. Elite flat races in Ireland have had their purses cut by between 30 to 50% while minimum value contests have seen their prize money levels drop by 10% from €10,000 to €9,000.

To return to the prize funds on offer at an international level it is quite remarkable given what has unfolded this year that classics in Germany and Italy are almost on a par with their counterparts in Britain. Especially when one considers the state of the racing industries in Germany and Italy, neither of which could be said to be thriving.

In terms of British racing, there is a cache and a prestige like no other with a meeting like Royal Ascot holding an allure that few, if any other fixtures, in the world can match.

However, we live in a rapidly changing world and the longer prize money levels in Britain remain at a basement level the graver the concern. There will come a point when tradition, history and prestige have to give way to cold, hard facts.

This is not to say that the prize money on offer in Ireland is outstanding but middle and lower tier horses here are better catered for and rewarded than is the case across the Irish Sea. As it stands, the system of prize money in Britain looks broken and flawed.

The levy by which prize money in Britain is generated as a percentage of bookmaker profits paid to British racing but any system, which in 2019 left horse racing facing an unexpected £17m shortfall in prize money, clearly isn’t working.

The debate concerning racing’s finances in Britain is an age old one and it had gotten to the stage where calls for improved levels of prize money were simply falling on deaf ears.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic and the understandable cuts to prize money which have come with it, have brought the issue of prize money back to the fore and have turned the focus back on a broken system.

Indeed this is a system which at its current levels is going to start haemorrhaging both owners and trainers as they find themselves involved in an enterprise that simply doesn’t pay.

This is not to say that owners get involved in racehorse because there are excellent prospects of a return on investment as that is simply not the case.

However, if there was some prospect of a reasonable return at some point the racing industry would be in a far healthier state. Ownership is an area of considerable concern and has been for some time yet Britain seems beset by factional interests and division which is doing absolutely nothing to further the interests of those that spend small fortunes to supply racing with its most basic and essential ingredient – the horses.

You may well ask what does all this have to do with racing in this jurisdiction which is a long way from perfect itself.

However, a huge part of the thoroughbred industry in Ireland is reliant on its export trade to Britain be it in terms of yearlings, breeze-up horses, stores or point-to-pointers.

The demand in these various sectors is ultimately driven by owners and with prize money in Britain in such a perilous and lamentable state it would be wrong to take an insular view and not look with concern as to what is happening across the water.

The current situation has brought with it many challenges but when one considers where the Italian Derby and German Oaks are in terms of prize money this is surely a glaring example of the system in Britain being broken.

Even so, most owners never get to own horses who are competing at that level and statistics illustrate that the majority of the thoroughbred population compete within the middle and lower tiers of racing.

It is within these levels where a shortfall in prize money has been most acute and it is as a result of this that owners and, consequently, trainers are going to leave the sport.

Unfortunately this loss or drain of key participants is going to be felt in these parts as well given how crucial the British market is to the Irish thoroughbred industry.