IN his most recent column in this paper Michael Moore urged Horse Racing Ireland to pass on some of their windfall budget contribution to the hunts promoting meetings.

This seems an eminently sensible proposal and, whenever I have discussed it at meetings recently, everyone – whether they be owners, trainers, riders or just supporters – have strongly agreed.

It is quite obvious that of all sections of point-to-pointing the meeting organisers are under most financial pressure. With falling entries, other ways to increase income must be found to balance the books. Whether this be an increase in admission fees for visitors or the somewhat contentious rise in the cost of racecards seen in the northern region, spectators will be hit. If the public either choose to go elsewhere or buy fewer cards then a vicious circle will evolve.

Talk of increased entry fees for four and five-year-olds races raised all sorts of problems while a levy on the sale of point-to-point winners would be virtually impossible to administer. Other measures of self-help in terms of printing and administration do not guarantee increased revenue.

Therefore let us hope that those with their hands on the purse strings realise that an increase in the contribution to meetings would help keep everyone else’s costs down and would not impose great hardships on other sectors of the industry. A grant of €2,000 per meeting would work wonders.

While attendances at the autumn meetings so far have been quite reasonable it must be remembered that every extra paying attendee will help to raise the promoting hunt’s income. Therefore it is important to both attract new visitors and then make both them and existing patrons want to come back again.

While I do not want to single out last weekend’s Kilkenny meeting for criticism, since it is not alone in this respect, there were several ways in which lack of attention to detail could have put off newcomers.

Firstly, signposting for the meeting was below the standard expected, as this was only the third meeting at this venue. As it was the only meeting of the weekend it was likely that a good number of people coming would never have been there before. Many established courses no longer sign as well as they used to – this does not encourage first-time visitors who must be given the experience that makes them want to come back.

Secondly, communications on the field were poor in that the public address could only be heard with difficulty around the parade ring. Although the commentary was easy to hear in the infield this was not the case in the weigh-tent and horsebox areas. Had the two systems been connected this would not have been a problem.

Thirdly, to compound this annoyance, the written list of runners and riders was only available outside the weigh-tent which meant an additional trek between races to get this information. A second display should have been available near the parade ring.

It is unfortunate that the car park at Grennan is so far from the action that spectators cannot go back to their cars between races where often much socialising goes on. If these casual visitors are not offered some other way of social intercourse they will not be so keen to come again.

So much of this is just attention to detail and should not require an extra army of volunteers. The more people who enjoy their day the great number will return.