Irish Trainers

[Cantoris]

Interesting article in Sunday Independent on Irish trainers. Paraphrasing as follows:

- one top trainer has €2m in outstanding training fees and costs from purchasing horses
- At Trainers Fed AGM last week they discussed having a contract between trainer and owner going forward
- Curiously, standard training fees were also discussed at the AGM
- Some trainers now charging a grand a month for two horses
- one Curragh trainer who has 140 horses has only 4 syndicate owners left
- trainers cutting back on staff and one noted he had halved the team looking after the same number of horses.

Looks like there is going to be a lot of pain out there. I notice that Willie Mullins and Noel Meade have several horses in their names again. New for Meade and Mullins hasn't had that many over the last few years.

 

[Bobbyjo]

Worrying times.

Darker rumours floating around about a particular owner sending a large number of his horses to be culled........and not being the only one

 

[Guest_]

Interesting article in Sunday Independent on Irish trainers. Paraphrasing as follows:

- one top trainer has €2m in outstanding training fees and costs from purchasing horses
- At Trainers Fed AGM last week they discussed having a contract between trainer and owner going forward
- Curiously, standard training fees were also discussed at the AGM
- Some trainers now charging a grand a month for two horses
- one Curragh trainer who has 140 horses has only 4 syndicate owners left
- trainers cutting back on staff and one noted he had halved the team looking after the same number of horses.

Looks like there is going to be a lot of pain out there. I notice that Willie Mullins and Noel Meade have several horses in their names again. New for Meade and Mullins hasn't had that many over the last few years.

Yes its tough times but...

Did that trainer build up that 2 million debt in the last few months/year? I find that hard to believe and to be honest any trainer that runs up that sort of debt has serious questions to answer in any walk of life...the Sunday Independent did say that that particular trainer was not in danger of closing down.

Standard training fees might well have been discussed but there is absolutely no chance of that ever happening for obvious reasons.

Times are tough next year for sure....but some positives - prizemoney is still great in Ireland even despite the cuts, it is getting easier to get into the races now than a couple of years ago and that trend will be even more likely again next year.

The main danger and threat that is likely to come next year for Irish racing is the assurance or non (worst case scenario) from the Government not just for the next annual budget but it needs to be a 3-5 year assurance.

 

[Cantoris]

Did that trainer build up that 2 million debt in the last few months/year? I find that hard to believe and to be honest any trainer that runs up that sort of debt has serious questions to answer in any walk of life...the Sunday Independent did say that that particular trainer was not in danger of closing down.

Yeah it seems a lot but if you bought ten horses over the last year for €500k, and those ten have not had a training bill paid, that €500k could be €800k. I'm sure the €2 million includes all debts at the moment. So if you have 100 horses and two months fees outstanding, that's €400k say. So we are at €1.2 million now. Still a bit away but getting closer.

Standard training fees might well have been discussed but there is absolutely no chance of that ever happening for obvious reasons.

Agree with that, the bigger trainers will not want standard fees and neither will the smallest trainers. It only suits the middle ground.

Times are tough next year for sure....but some positives - prizemoney is still great in Ireland even despite the cuts, it is getting easier to get into the races now than a couple of years ago and that trend will be even more likely again next year.

I think the prizemoney is going to be changed mid next year. Bewleys have pulled their sponsorship, AIG are gone from the Irish Champion Hurdle, and the builders will surely all pull their sponsorship. Add that to banks and other business pulling out and I just can't see who is going to make up the difference. Sure that first race at Fairyhouse last week was sold on ebay for only €1,500 for a €35k race!

The main danger and threat that is likely to come next year for Irish racing is the assurance or non (worst case scenario) from the Government not just for the next annual budget but it needs to be a 3-5 year assurance.

The link between betting and funding has now been broken and this is a serious issue for racing. It is now a grant and this will surely be reduced in the future.

 

[Grey]

The link between betting and funding has now been broken and this is a serious issue for racing. It is now a grant and this will surely be reduced in the future.

That is the nub.

Racing in Ireland did well out of the boom, thanks to having friends in high places.

But now that most of those friends are gone, and the political and economic climate has changed, and there are mass protests about the plight of schools and hospitals, the government can't be seen to be giving large handouts to racing.

In the longer term Irish racing has to find a means of financing itself that is not so dependent on political good will.