AS was the case at the beginning of last season, the new campaign will commence without any significant changes to the rules concerning the racing itself.

Where there are changes, however, is within the process of registering hunter certificates and handler permits amongst others, which now features a significant modification for the new campaign.

In the case of hunter certificates, in previous years handlers and or owners would have submitted their hunter certificates to the Turf Club who were responsible for processing both the certificate and the payment itself.

Following the amendments contained within the Horse Racing Ireland Act 2016, all registration charges in relation to point-to-points will now be collected by Horse Racing Ireland before being returned to the Turf Club.

In a letter sent to all point-to-point handlers in July, Josh Byrne, Registrar of the I.N.H.S Committee, detailed these changes for handlers:

“In light of these legislation changes, it will be necessary to open an HRI account, if you do not already have one, before you commence the registration process. You will be required to lodge sufficient funds to the account to cover any future registration charges.

If there are insufficient funds in the account, this will delay the registration of a handler’s permit or hunter certificate. Likewise, if the HRI account number is not included on the form, or incorrect, it will not be processed and will delay registration.

“It must also be stressed that payments made to the Turf Club, in any format, cannot be processed and will be returned, and will delay the registration of a Handlers Permit or Hunters Certificate.

“Registration forms can still be sent to the Turf Club via the internal mail bag from race meetings or point-to-point meetings, but no payments can be sent via this method in future.”

As the payment for a hunter certificate will now be debited from the handler’s HRI account, it is the handler alone who has the sole authority to sign the hunter certificate, and not either the handler or owner as was previously the case.

The change has been met with some caution, with handlers at their recent meeting noting the additional requirement upon them, while within some hunt committees, there is a concern over their connection with owners.

FEARS

Some have expressed a fear that owners may now leave getting a hunter certificate to the handler, instead of approaching their local hunt directly themselves. This could see the hunt lose a direct connection with owners, many of whom could be landowners, over whose land they hunt.

Many rule or procedural changes in the past have sparked debate as to their merits and whether it was a step in the right direction for the sport. However, in regard to this hunter certificate change, once the HRI Act was sworn into legislation by government, the role of processing the fees had to move to HRI, irrespective of whether it was for better or worse.

While it is a notable change, primarily behind the scenes, it is one that the handlers were provided with well over two months’ notice ahead of the season commencing.

This pro-active effort on the Turf Club’s behalf, appears to have avoided any significant confusion and delays with registering certs.

Ray Bergin from the hunter certificate department within the Turf Club has reported “no real issues”, a fact borne out in the statistics which show that the number of hunter certificates registered is broadly in line with the corresponding point last season.