LEOPARDSTOWN can expect a full house for the Dublin Racing Festival, pending inspections, but the positive attendance figures reported this week by Horse Racing Ireland [HRI] do not reflect the true picture at many of Ireland’s smaller and medium-sized racecourses.

Latest industry statistics show that total attendances at Irish tracks in 2025 was up 6% at over 1.3 million people. HRI chief executive Suzanne Eade commented: “Attendances were strong, and many tracks around the country showed increased attendance figures year-on-year. The bigger festivals performed strongly, and Punchestown’s festival being up by over 15% to more than 136,000 patrons is a good example. The Irish Derby weekend at the Curragh, the Galway Races, Listowel’s Harvest meeting and Leopardstown at Christmas all posted gains as well.”

Gowran Park welcomed a crowd of over 8,000 for its Thyestes meeting last week and, while the Co Kilkenny venue expects another bumper attendance on February 14th when admission is free, manager Eddie Scally says that smaller racecourses are under pressure, especially if they have to cancel or reschedule a raceday.

“We are very lucky to have two of the biggest stand-alone racedays in Irish racing - the Thyestes and Red Mills Raceday - but they are exceptional,” Scally said. “We focus an awful lot on the festivals but we must not forget the stand-alone days. The truth of the matter is that the small days, the industry days, are getting tougher.

“For those racecourses that do not have a festival, it’s vital that you race every day you have a meeting. It’s a complete and utter disaster when a meeting is lost. Even if your meeting is rescheduled it gets squeezed into another slot which probably has a knock-on effect for another racecourse which is racing at that time. So both tracks end up losing out.”

Media rights revenues for racecourses are influenced by betting turnover, and smaller tracks tend to have less attractive slots in the calendar. Scally explained: “The ideal scenario would be to have all your fixtures on a Saturday and to have no other track racing in Ireland or England, but that’s not realistic. When a fixture is rescheduled your betting revenue, as well as your attendance, is also very likely to drop.”

Ownership

Racehorse ownership figures for 2025 also made for interesting reading, if not easy to decipher. The overall number of horses in training was down slightly but the total number of racehorse owners was fractionally up.

Within the ownership ranks there was a notable spike in company registrations, up 15%, but the number of new owners registered in 2025 was down 5.7% on the previous year.

Amber O’Grady, ownership manager for HRI, said: “I’m more inclined to look at the positives – we had 790 new owners coming into the sport last year, which is not a bad figure. Is it not unusual for trends to fluctuate. As you can imagine cost is the main deterrent for people coming into ownership – it is a luxury spend so naturally when there are cost of living pressures, luxury spend is going to be hit first.

“Having said that, 57% of racing fans say they are interested in ownership. It is our job to ensure, if they have the disposable income, they know the routes into ownership.

“Existing owners also play a big part in recruitment. Some 55% of owners say they came into ownership through family and friends, so we need to concentrate on ensuring the people already in ownership have a good experience – keeping retention rates strong and ensuring existing owners are encouraged to bring new people into the sport.”

The biggest growth of all the metrics measured came in the combined value of €225.4m bloodstock sales at public auction, up by 14%.

The overall handle through the Tote amounted to €81.3m, a climb of 7.2% on the previous 12 months. This figure incorporates €10.6m through the Tote on course (up by 1.9%) and €62.8m off course (up by 9.0%) on Irish pools. The World Pool betting, brought into some of Ireland’s biggest flat fixtures, realised €7.9m in turnover, an increase of 1.3% on a year earlier.

Commercial sponsorship has continued to show growth, rising by 2.9% to €7.0m. The support from the Irish EBF strengthened by 6.9% to €3.1m.

Prize money offered amounted to €70.76m, up by 1.2% on the 2024 figure. Prize money won in Britain by Irish-trained horses came in at exactly £20m, slightly down by 2% on the comparable figure in 2024. However, throughout the rest of the world Irish horses earned 35.8% more than in 2024.

Suzanne Eade commented: “The industry figures for 2025 reveal a racing and breeding industry that performed well. Prize money, betting turnover, the value of bloodstock sales and sponsorship all moved in a positive direction, too. These are indicators that our sport is in good health and that it continues to hold a broad appeal.”

INDUSTRY STATISTICS >>7