BOTH surveys confirmed and raised some interesting issues regarding the racehorse ownership experience in Ireland.

Feedback from such reviews are invaluable for Horse Racing Ireland, particularly so that the results include a wide range of views and had a healthy representation from all racehorse owners. The surveys were recently presented to the board of Horse Racing Ireland and below are a few of the main points that came out and how they are being addressed.

RACEDAY EXPERIENCE

One of the main findings from each survey, was how important the overall experience was to the owner.

This experience starts from the relationship with the trainer (that scored very positively in the survey) to the raceday experience when the owner has a runner.

It is encouraging to see nearly 80% of owners have seen some level of improvement in racecourse facilities but that is something that has to be built upon again for the future.

The fruits of Horse Racing Ireland’s €100 million Racecourse Capital Development Fund are starting to be seen around the country and more is to come with the likes of Punchestown, Naas and Gowran Park amongst others all set to start construction on new owner facilities over the next couple of years.

Downpatrick was one of the first to offer each owner with a runner a complimentary lunch and, in the last couple of years, Leopardstown, Gowran Park, Fairyhouse, Ballinrobe, Cork and other Irish racecourses have introduced similar offerings.

These are all steps in the right direction and owners should ensure their email addresses are up to date with Horse Racing Ireland to ensure they are receiving this information upon entry. Ticketing remains an issue for many owners and that is one of the priorities to be addressed.

FINANCE

Finance was one of the main factors in the drop-off in owners in recent years and it clearly remains a barrier for many people to get back involved.

Since 2013 Horse Racing Ireland has reduced its racing department charges by over 30% and remains committed to ensuring that these charges are kept at a minimum.

As well as that, a fair return on prize-money is important to most owners and HRI has increased prize-money by 27% since 2011. This increase has been focused on the entry level races as well as the middle to low handicaps with no race run in Ireland worth less than €9,000. HRI has also changed the distribution of prize-money next year so that placed horses will receive a greater percentage of prize-money.

OWNERSHIP OPTIONS

Tying in with the finance issues, getting involved in ownership and the flexibility of the different ownership formats is currently been reviewed by Horse Racing Ireland. The aim of this review is to make syndicates, partnerships and clubs an even more enticing way of getting involved by allowing more members to participate and making the management of these joint ownerships as straight forward as possible. These changes are planned to be introduced in the coming months. These are hugely important changes as they open up the possibility of attracting more people to join syndicates and clubs at affordable prices. These owner formats are likely to benefit a broad spectrum of trainers and such members could well end up using this as a gateway to sole ownership in the future.

EVENTS

This year has been another busy year of events and promotions for racehorse ownership. These include assisting with trainer open mornings with trainers such as Tracey Collins, the Punchestown trainers’ forum during the festival, a television advertising campaign on At The Races and Channel 4, targeting international owners in London, and the upcoming owners’ day at Leopardstown, to name just a few.

All efforts are being made to engage with those with an interest in the sport as well as broadening the appeal. These endeavours should be further boosted for 2017, with additional resources being assigned to the retention and recruitment of owners.

COMMUNICATION

By the first quarter of 2017, a new dedicated owner website will be launched that will be a one-stop shop for potential owners, as well as a valuable information port for current owners. The website will include information on the various costs, what to expect at each racecourse and ways of getting involved (shares in racehorses, claiming race information, leasing options etc). Those lapsed owners who have expressed an interest to get back involved again will be contacted to assist in any way possible. Horse Racing Ireland will survey each owner on an annual basis, but, in the meantime, at any stage please feel free to send on any feedback to me.

Aidan McGarry can be contacted via email on

amcgarry@hri.ie