OVER the course of the last year and a half, staffing levels and the retention of existing staff have been among the more significant dilemmas that the Irish racing industry has had to confront.

As we move towards 2019, the issue of trainers and others being able to recruit staff and hold on to them is going to remain a pressing matter with no easy solution. Indeed, other sectors within an improving economy present the racing industry with increasingly stiff competition when it comes to recruiting staff on any scale.

This calls to mind the release of the 2019 fixture list in the first half of September. The accompanying narrative to the release of the fixtures noted that “cognisant of the pressure in the industry around staffing, the number of completely blank Sundays in the summer months has been increased to five (from three), while there will also be five other Sundays during the flat turf season with no flat racing scheduled.”

STAFFING PROBLEMS

From this it is clear that the authorities were taking the pressures around staffing within the industry seriously and such initiatives during a particularly busy time of the year are to be commended.

This is what makes some of the scheduling concerning last weekend’s racing a little disappointing. On Friday evening we had a Dundalk fixture concluding at 9pm and the following day Gowran Park got underway at 11.35 am. Admittedly one meeting was a flat fixture and the other one was a National Hunt one and there was no yard that had a runner in the last at Dundalk and the first at Gowran Park.

On the other hand, Joseph O’Brien, James Lambe, Gavin Cromwell and Dermot McLoughlin all had runners in one of the last three races at Dundalk and one of the first three races at Gowran Park. Surely at this time of year it is simply asking a little too much to have these meetings finishing and starting at the times they did.

EXCEPTIONAL

The start time for the Gowran Park fixture was exceptional and came about as a result of the division of the three-year-old maiden hurdle. By the time it came to dividing the Gowran Park race it was Friday morning and the start times for the card at Dundalk were set in stone as that track was racing later that day.

However, the decision to divide Saturday’s opener didn’t just happen overnight. It was actually flagged up in the preceding days that the three-year-old hurdle could be divided. This must have given rise to the prospect of Gowran Park starting before midday and surely it raised the possibility of some staff finishing up late as a result of Dundalk before then having to hit out early on Saturday morning.

This is no doubt a very rare situation, the racing schedule at this time of year isn’t at all as hectic as it is in the summer and the meetings were for separates codes. Even still it shouldn’t have happened and surely there was time enough to make a decision in the first half of last week to bring Dundalk to a close earlier at either 8.30 or 8pm.

Over the first two months of 2019 Dundalk’s last race will be at 8.30pm so an earlier finish last week surely wouldn’t have created a huge dilemma.

If we are able to look at ahead to the middle of 2019 and make decisions based on staffing pressures within the industry then surely we can come to similarly sensible conclusions in the space of just a few days.

LAST Monday represented the passing of an era with the news that John Oxx’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe hero and dual Derby winner and Sinndar had died at the age of 21. After something of a fallow period in the Derby, the victory of Sinndar paved the way for what has been an unprecedented run of success for Irish horses in the world’s most iconic classic.

Following his victory in the final staging of the National Stakes over a mile, Sinndar began his three-year-old season with a defeat in the Ballysax Stakes before a hard fought win over Bach in the Derrinstown Derby Trial.

He journeyed to Epsom looking to become the first horse from these shores to win the Derby since Secreto in 1984 and during that time only four horses from Ireland – remarkably three of them trained by Jim Bolger in a period spanning 1991-1993 – had been placed in the race.

CHALLENGE

This left one wondering whether the son of Grand Lodge had what it took to win, but he duly rose to the challenge at hand to defeat the subsequent Arc winner Sakhee. Just as another Oxx-trained colt, Sea The Stars, would do less than a decade later, Sinndar was trained to absolute perfection at all stages and he just got better and better as his three-year-old season went on. His crowning moment came with a typically bold and determined effort in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Of all his performances his Irish Derby success was his most visually impressive and it was striking just how much distance he put between himself and the remainder over the course of the last furlong and a half. This nine-length triumph was achieved against a field that included the runaway Prix du Jockey Club (French Derby) winner Holding Court, the subsequent Secretariat Stakes victor Ciro and the future Melbourne Cup scorer Media Puzzle.

He will go down as one of the greats, particularly as his emergence came in a period when Irish-trained winners of English classics and races of such stature aren’t anything like as frequent as they are nowadays.