BOOKMAKERS at Leopardstown this weekend face a dilemma - play it safe or be brave and oppose the 10 favourites priced at 2/1 or shorter at the two-day Dublin Racing Festival.

Eight of the 10 are trained by Willie Mullins and six of the 10 are forecast to start at odds-on.

Darragh Fitzpatick, one of the best-known layers in the ring, said: “It’s a difficult one. I intend going for a couple of them but there’s only so many beatings you can take. If you’re taking them on, you have to take them all on and hope a few of them get beaten eventually. I’ll be offering customers the opportunity to place multiple bets, covering all the short-priced favourites.”

Fitzpatrick expects strong turnover this weekend. “The crowds will be big, with plenty coming from Britain, and I think the sterling turnover will be very healthy.”

This week Horse Racing Ireland released industry statistics for 2023 which revealed that on-course betting turnover rose by almost 6% last year, despite a 1% drop in attendances. However, Fitzpatrick believes the statistics don’t tell the full story.

“Over the past six to eight months I have noticed a few big punters arriving in the ring to back odds-on favourites. They are inflating the turnover. A lot of the odds-on shots are winning, more than they should. These punters are winning a little bit and ploughing the money in again, so the turnover has gone up.

“We’re also seeing more business being done on the premier days and the lesser meetings falling off a cliff. Personally I have given up going to midweek meetings, as have a lot of bookmakers, because they can’t make it pay.”

Total on-course betting, including Tote, rose to €80.5 million in 2023, an increase of 5.9%. Bookmaker betting on-course increased by the same percentage to €69.8 million, a figure comprising €59.9 million, up 5.1% in the betting ring and a turnover of €9.9 million in the on-course SP shops, up 11.2% on the previous year.

Total Tote betting, incorporating the World Pool meetings at the Curragh on Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby Day in early July and the opening day of the Irish Champions Festival at Leopardstown in September, rose by 9.6% to €78 million. Betting on-course with Tote is up by 5.6% to €10.7 million. Off-course betting receipts amounted to €102.6 million, a slight increase on last year’s figure of €102 million.

The HRI statistics show an increase in the numbers of horses-in-training, although the returns do show that reported racecourse attendances are marginally down on 2022. Minor reductions were also recorded in the number of entries and the total number of owners, figures that might have been expected with the cost of living crisis prevailing throughout the year.

Commercial sponsorship rose by 8.8% to €6.3 million with EBF sponsorship coming in at €2.67 million, up 3.1% on last year.

Bloodstock sales at public auction increased by 7.5% to €231.5 million, the value of Irish-foaled export horses sold through auction is €333.7 million while the number of countries to which Irish-foaled horses were sold at auction was 33.

While the total number of owners fell by 1.2% to 4,698, the number of syndicates has risen by 4% to 858. The number of companies registered as owners in Ireland is up 3.3% to 158. The number of new owners is down by 1.6% to 805 but encouragingly, the owner retention rate has risen to 73.7%, up 1.2% on last year.

There are a total of 357 British-based owners, an increase of 7.5%, and 107 owners resident in the USA, up from 90 last year.

The 2023 economic impact report, carried out on behalf of HRI by Deloitte, shows that Irish racing and breeding attracts over €550 million in foreign direct investment each year.

The total number of horses-in-training is up 2.3% to 10,444. Prize money rose by 2.1% to €68.12 million while there was an increase of almost 41% to £16.74 million in the prize money won by Irish-trained horses in Britain, with €10.39 million won by Irish-trained horses in the rest of the world, up almost 31% on the previous year.