I don’t think the concentration of good horses in Ireland is just down to differences in prize money and tax treatment.
A large part of it is down to the special talents of one person and the team he has assembled. It’s not just English trainers that are feeling the pinch, look what’s happening even to Gordon Elliott’s stable with his big money backing from Gigginstown and Bective Stud.
But English NH trainers as a group are very complacent and unadventurous. How many of them would even consider running a horse in France or Ireland, never mind Australia, the US or Japan?* Irish Racing is a smaller world, so trainers have always had to be more enterprising. And now, if they are to survive in the face of WPM they have to be very professional.
Gavin Cromwell, for example, has won Group races on the flat in France and England as well as making his way into the inner circle of jump racing. Meanwhile I remember Dan Skelton saying in an interview that he was more interested in winning races at his local tracks than taking horses to the likes of Punchestown.
Things will never be the same again after WPM has moved on, but the seesaw will start to balance itself. It is in the long term interests of the sport in both our countries that it does.
* This remark doesn’t apply to British flat trainers, by the way.
