Waking up on Saturday morning and logging on to social media, I was bit surprised to see such a reaction to an extract quote across all our The Irish Field platforms from my interview with Jessica Harrington in Saturday’s paper.

Surprised by the sheer mass - 500 likes on Instagram, 600 on Facebook, 83 shares there as well and 40-odd comments all agreeing wholeheartedly with the point Harrington was making about the disparity between life on the racecourse these days and life everywhere else. You can read the article here.

Then again, this sort of public frustration towards the Government’s measures on society has been growing and it’s the snowball that may become an avalanche soon.

It was interesting to read the opinions of Colm O’Rourke and Joe Brolly in yesterday’s The Sunday Independent. There are a lot of parallels evident between gaelic games and horse racing in this country. There is a huge overlap in the catchment areas of people with interests in attending/engaging in both sports.

O’Rourke and Brolly have similar viewpoints and both made reference to the Government not providing evidence that having crowds at GAA matches contributed to the spreading of the virus.

Brolly wrote: “There is no logic behind the decision by Micheál Martin and his coalition to ban spectators. Nor is there any logic behind their decision to keep the bars closed. The fact that we are the only country in Europe to have such a ban speaks for itself

“The games and the pubs, particularly the small rural pubs are a lifeline for our elderly folk. They can go down to the pitch of an evening to plug into the world, watch a hurling match, have a chat with an old friend, have some vital social contact and generally feel alive for an hour.”

I can’t help feeling there is a huge amount of elderly folk missing out a day at one of their local tracks. One man’s local football or hurling game is another man’s day at the races, except there are plenty who love and rely on both.

It should be pointed out at this stage that the GAA are a separate entity to the Government, as opposed to Horse Racing Ireland which is a semi-state body, answerable to Department of Agriculture. That puts Irish racing’s governing body in an awkward position somewhat as it’s a case of not biting the hand that feeds you.

Measures

That is why everytime the Government have changed policy during this pandemic, HRI have immediately implemented measures in line with the national advice.

Having racing on is clearly the priority and you understand why HRI would not want to rock the boat but they had to do that somewhat to get our sport back on in the first place. Remember when, as per the Government roadmap, we weren’t due to get back racing until June 29th? HRI went into a lockdown of their own, working around the clock to lobby hard for a June 8th return and successfully presented that case to the Government.

Such a chronic situation, with racing beginning in most other jurisdictions, most significantly our nearest neighbours, demanded such action. When does the current situation get chronic enough to warrant a similar lobby movement to the Government? We can’t be too far off it.

Just last Saturday week, the story on our front page detailed the huge hole racecourses find themselves in now with no income from the paying customer. With no signs of any crowds being let back into the races, the big racecourses and their big festivals are being hit hard with no advance bookings.

Meanwhile crowds of up to 6,000 will be allowed to attend the Pertemps St Leger Festival at Doncaster this weekend and crowds of up to 5,000 have been allowed to go racing in France over the last few months.

The general economic situation was pointed to in the declines in the big store sales last month but where is the incentive to buy a National Hunt racehorse when there are no signs yet that you will be allowed to have the basic pleasure of watching your horse run in the flesh. This applies to the yearling sales as well. Turnover at the Premier Sale at Doncaster was down 38% last week.

As Jessica Harrington also pointed out, that is a British sale taking place in Britain, what will happen at the Irish sales moved over there, with all the extra costs for buyers evident. Big British owners are walking away from the sport. We’d be naive to think that won’t happen here also.

Lobby

If HRI can’t lobby the Government, why can’t the Association of Irish Racecourses do so?

There is no light at the end of the tunnel at present but if HRI can prove to the industry that there is progress being made, like some sort of roadmap that gets the paying public back into the races, then surely that will have much needed positive effects on all sides.

Instead we’re just sitting tight waiting for a floundering Government to act.