Our series on racehorse owners continues with John Weld

John Weld is halfway through his four-year tenure as Chairman of the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners (AIRO). As a breeder and a racehorse owner, John has had many successes, not least with Desert Sky, Snippets and Battle In Hand, who won at the Galway Festival with his son in the saddle. John is a veterinary surgeon but his main business is as a thoroughbred consultant, building and restoring racing operations and breeding operations in Europe, Asia and the US.

FOR years, I’ve been breeding and racing horses in Ireland and I came into AIRO from that angle – I’ve always felt that owners were short-changed and taken for granted. As owners, we’ve almost become apologetic, especially by being labelled in with the big owners. We only want a little bit of fun, to get our families involved, and to have the odd good day to outweigh all the bad days.

The function of AIRO is to represent the owner politically, to improve their raceday experience, and to safeguard their return from racing.

By raceday experience, we mean from the time the owner gets to the course in terms of parking facilities, and a lounge where the owner can be taken care of and get refreshments of some kind. Racecourses receive the media rights, but the owners provide the material, so it’s not unreasonable to expect proper prize money and proper facilities.

Owners generally don’t expect much out of racing. Not many horses actually win and owners know it’s an uphill struggle and a very competitive business. So when you do win a race, it’s reasonable to expect a significant amount of prize money to help maintain and keep that animal in training.

Horseracing in Ireland is close to a billion euro per year industry, and owners in this country pay out a huge proportion of that every year – they’re a big element of the game but are largely forgotten about. Some 30-40% of that amount comes from abroad – if the IDA were to come up with €300-€400 million worth of foreign investment, the Government would be doing whatever it could to make it happen.

In the Budget last week, Minister Coveney says he worked hard to get €68million allocated to the Horse & Greyhound Fund, but that’s just a small fraction of what owners put into racing each year. Hence, they’ve a right to feel aggrieved – facilities are atrocious in this country.

Leopardstown was built in the 1970s. They’ve done some great work sprucing it up recently, but it needs more. And the Curragh is completely antiquated. Look at the Aviva Stadium or Croke Park – they’re proper sporting venues. Both had lots of Government assistance but the Curragh have to jump through an unbelievable amount of hoops to get a grant. And if they do receive some financial assistance, there will be lots of strings attached.

Minister Coveney has listened to us, and I’m reasonably optimistic that he’ll do a great job for racing. The Budget was very good for us – he worked very hard to achieve those results.

We feel very strongly that the HRI board is representing owners inadequately - we have only one seat on it. The Minister has three seats on the board but we feel that racehorse owners should be represented with three seats. Owners are so important but don’t get the recognition. We’re probably the last people consulted on most situations and we want our profile raised so we can play a bigger role. We can achieve that by strengthening our grass roots and getting more people involved – that’s the reason for our forums.

When we talk to the Government, the amount of rural jobs that could be lost in racing is glossed over. But when we hear that if the bookmaking industry doesn’t get more opening hours, it’ll be a disaster for them.

Heading HRI and the Turf Club are two of the greatest minds in racing in Joe Keeling and Neville O’Byrne. Instead of putting those guys to work to improve racing and utilising their extensive business experience, they’re being bogged down by petty squabbles relating to streamlining and combining the two bodies’ services.

Ultimately, AIRO want to serve the owner, but in recent times, owners have been somewhat neglected. We try to look after owners on racedays when they don’t have runners. We provided hospitality at the Punchestown and Galway Festivals, and at the big Curragh meetings where we welcome our members to come in for some refreshments. These efforts are supported by the respective racecourses and ITM.

Our free admission programme for 2015 has still to be determined but we’re hoping we’ll expand on the 70 meetings we covered in 2014. Racecourses have been very helpful and we’re co-operating with them, and all the governing bodies, rather than conflicting with them.

Our only income is an annual subscription - nothing else. It’s important we can relate to our membership of almost 2,000 members, which covers some 66% of active racehorse owners at the moment.

We’re holding a series of four forums, the first of which was last Tuesday in Mitchelstown, to meet our various members around the country and get them involved. HRI, racecourses, vet practises, trainers are all invited and there is free admission. In fact anyone who is interested in racing, and may be interested in the future of the industry, can attend free of charge. We want everyone to interact with us and be proactive.

AIRO has secured free admission on over 70 racedays this year for registered owners with a horse in training.

UPCOMING FREE DATES

Naas November 2nd

Thurles November 6th

Limerick November 9th

Wexford November 18th

John Weld was in conversation with Joe Finegan