Would that be when he "corrects the drift" that occurs over a number of years? I think it happened about 1999 last, when all marks went up by 10lb.
Not looking good across the water
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- Start date
Would that be when he "corrects the drift" that occurs over a number of years? I think it happened about 1999 last, when all marks went up by 10lb.
PUNCHESTOWN SECURES FIVE KEY SPONSORS FOR €1 MILLION FESTIVAL FEATURES
Punchestown Racecourse has secured the support of five key sponsors for its feature events throughout the 2009 National Hunt Festival.
Rabobank, Guinness, Kerrygold, Ladbrokes.com and Ballymore will each lend their name and financial support to the five key races at Ireland’s biggest horse racing festival. The five races will together be worth over €1 million.
In marked contrast to business sentiment over the last number of months, Punchestown Managing Director Dick O’Sullivan revealed today (Monday, February 9th) that corporate and restaurant bookings for the Friday of the Festival were already sold out and that the Tuesday only had a handful of places left.
“We were not willing to stand in the shadows and succumb to the doom and gloom,” said O’Sullivan speaking at a briefing attended by EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy and Chairman of Horse Racing Ireland, Denis Brosnan. “We met our sponsors’ needs and with their support we have produced as fine a programme of racing as has ever been seen in this country. Though times are tough in the business world, there is still life in the Irish economy and a lot of business bonds will be formed and forged at Punchestown in April. The activities which we host at Punchestown are directly responsible for the creation and protection of an estimated 2,000 jobs locally and this responsibility is something we take very seriously in the current climate.”
“Punchestown is maintaining and developing relationships with all its customers that will survive not only this recession but probably the next as well,” said Charlie McCreevy paying tribute to the economic importance of the Punchestown Festival stating that “last year’s festival was worth over €70 million to the local and national economy” and also highlighting that Punchestown was catering to the regular race goer with group discount packages of only €29 for a days racing, a drink, a bet and a race programme.
“Punchestown is an example of how our sport needs to adapt to the market and offer the best value to retain customers at every level from the turnstile to the winners enclosure,” added Denis Brosnan.
Monday also marked the end of a dispute between Paddy Power and Punchestown with the bookmaker renewing support of the Grade One Paddy Power Festival Bumper.
“We are glad that Paddy Power is still part of the family at Punchestown,” said O’Sullivan.
The Punchestown Irish National Hunt Festival takes place from Tuesday 28th April to Saturday 2nd May 2009.
Punchestown Racecourse has secured the support of five key sponsors for its feature events throughout the 2009 National Hunt Festival.
Rabobank, Guinness, Kerrygold, Ladbrokes.com and Ballymore will each lend their name and financial support to the five key races at Ireland’s biggest horse racing festival. The five races will together be worth over €1 million.
In marked contrast to business sentiment over the last number of months, Punchestown Managing Director Dick O’Sullivan revealed today (Monday, February 9th) that corporate and restaurant bookings for the Friday of the Festival were already sold out and that the Tuesday only had a handful of places left.
“We were not willing to stand in the shadows and succumb to the doom and gloom,” said O’Sullivan speaking at a briefing attended by EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy and Chairman of Horse Racing Ireland, Denis Brosnan. “We met our sponsors’ needs and with their support we have produced as fine a programme of racing as has ever been seen in this country. Though times are tough in the business world, there is still life in the Irish economy and a lot of business bonds will be formed and forged at Punchestown in April. The activities which we host at Punchestown are directly responsible for the creation and protection of an estimated 2,000 jobs locally and this responsibility is something we take very seriously in the current climate.”
“Punchestown is maintaining and developing relationships with all its customers that will survive not only this recession but probably the next as well,” said Charlie McCreevy paying tribute to the economic importance of the Punchestown Festival stating that “last year’s festival was worth over €70 million to the local and national economy” and also highlighting that Punchestown was catering to the regular race goer with group discount packages of only €29 for a days racing, a drink, a bet and a race programme.
“Punchestown is an example of how our sport needs to adapt to the market and offer the best value to retain customers at every level from the turnstile to the winners enclosure,” added Denis Brosnan.
Monday also marked the end of a dispute between Paddy Power and Punchestown with the bookmaker renewing support of the Grade One Paddy Power Festival Bumper.
“We are glad that Paddy Power is still part of the family at Punchestown,” said O’Sullivan.
The Punchestown Irish National Hunt Festival takes place from Tuesday 28th April to Saturday 2nd May 2009.
That's code for saying they have given each sponsor a free marquee!!
granger
Senior Jockey
Todays Indo
Irish Field had an article on HRI's talks with Dept of Finance. Martin Cullen (Minister for Sport, Tourism blah di blah) comments last were useful as when asked by the opposition if the funds for racing were guaranteed he simply answered yes. If the opposition get in then Irish prizemoney is dead. They want to cut back dramatically and have no interest in racing. The current government have at least some semblance of an interest in it. Hopefully they will see the woods from the trees. Talking to a bllodstock man last night and he said no-one has any idea about how the sales will go this year. Could be very very bad or just bad. Worryingly, he said he would hate to know how many filly foals are getting knocked on the head when they are born.
I await Alan Lee's next article to report that after the success of the Irish horses at Cheltenham, Ireland's economy is back on track and nothing to worry about...as the two are so closely linked!
Just spotted this the other day. Interesting that Taaffe now owns Beautiful Vision now. A lot will happen now over the next six months.
"The single largest judgment registered in the last week was by holiday company Sunway Travel, which secured a €450,000 charge against Conor Clarkson, of 28 Cairnfort, Stepaside, Co Dublin, in the High Court. A spokeswoman for Sunway said the company would make "no comment" on the details of the bumper judgment. "
"The single largest judgment registered in the last week was by holiday company Sunway Travel, which secured a €450,000 charge against Conor Clarkson, of 28 Cairnfort, Stepaside, Co Dublin, in the High Court. A spokeswoman for Sunway said the company would make "no comment" on the details of the bumper judgment. "
Further Changes to Funding of Racing Industry
Announced by Horse Racing Ireland
Prize Money to be reduced by additional 5%
Operating Costs to be reduced by additional 5%
Continued suspension of Racecourse Capital Development Programme
Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) today announced a further series of budgetary measures for 2009. These are in response to the challenging economic environment, the €1.2 million reduction in funding to the industry announced in the April 2009 Budget, and a significant drop in HRI’s overall income, which is forecast to be down by 14% year-on-year. The new measures include a range of cost saving initiatives, a reduction in prize money, and continued restrictions on racecourse capital development projects.
HRI’s Chief Executive, Brian Kavanagh, stated: “We are in unprecedented times, and the HRI Board is taking these measures to ensure that racing operates to a balanced budget for the year.” The key features of the revised HRI budget for the remainder of 2009 are as follows:
1. Prize Money
Total prize money will be reduced by a further €2.7 million to €53.8 million in 2009, with a 5% cut in base values to be applied across all race categories from the end of May. This has been necessitated by a significant drop in the level of owners’ entry fees and race sponsorship compared to last year. Overall, with the cuts previously announced, prize money will fall by €6.6 million or 11% in 2009. A further reduction in the administration fee and prize money for Point-to-Points will also apply from this autumn.
2. Racecourse Capital Developments
The Racecourse Capital Development Fund will continue to be curtailed with no new projects approved in the short term. This Fund is financed by long term borrowings and until the issues surrounding the long term future of the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund are addressed, borrowings to cover necessary future developments cannot be put in place.
3. Cost Savings
Additional cost savings of €0.5 million (or 6%) will be achieved within HRI through further cuts in central overhead and administration costs.
4. Integrity Costs
Further savings of €445k (or 6%) are being sought from the Turf Club for 2009 in relation to the integrity costs.
HRI’s Chief Executive, Brian Kavanagh, added: “While further cutbacks at this point of the year are regrettable, they are unavoidable in the current climate. An improvement in the economic environment and most importantly secure, long term funding are central to a return to growth in the industry. HRI continues to work to achieve this aim, so as to safeguard the 16,500 mainly rural jobs within the Irish horse racing and breeding industry, and to ensure the resumption of the Racecourse Capital Development Programme as soon as possible.”
mrussell
At the Start
Poor news.
It's a flat 5% across the board, for every race -- but it's not a good way to go. Losing 5% of €2000 is €100 & isn't that quite a hefty chunk for those working at the 'more economic' levels after expenses?
It's a flat 5% across the board, for every race -- but it's not a good way to go. Losing 5% of €2000 is €100 & isn't that quite a hefty chunk for those working at the 'more economic' levels after expenses?
Sheikh
At the Start
It will be interesting to see whether they stagger the reduction in prizemoney so that the lesser pots aren't as badly hit. Only a year ago they where trying to get the no. of horses in training down. Now they're having to announce emergency budgets to tackle the consequences of getting their wish.
Having said that the prizemoney is still reasonable. The first race in Sligo on Sunday is a maiden hurdle worth €5,528 to the winner. If owners go looking for value for money from trainers, being an owner is still viable.
I disagree with any approach which favours prize-money for poorer horses over better horses. IMO, prizemoney for low class racing should neve rhave gotten to the levels they did. A 0-60 handicap being worth 8k/10k. Madness. This sort of prizemoney encouraged owners to have bad horses in training. Now that these owners (mainly synidcates buying cheap horses) are gone, there should be some protection of those willing to go out and pay 25-30k for a horse. I would advocate a 50% cut in the lowest grades of races and redistribute into the middle grades. We need to focus on who is spending the money and who racing wants to protect. The 100k guy has enough money not to be overly bothered by prizemoney, its the 20-30k guy that now needs to be encouraged by keeping prizemoney in the mid tier level up. Those that only want to pay 5k for a horse or want to keep a bad horse in training should run for poor money if there horses ability matches its price at auction.
Heck, Cantoris - half the foals didn't sell last year, and the rest of those that did sold for peanuts. We've also heard the horror rumours of many being destroyed, rather than kept by their breeders. By your reckoning, low cost equals low performance and deserves rubbish prize money. There's no guarantee that this year's sales will show any upswing, either, so breeders big, medium, but particularly small, will continue to be burnt. Only the mega-rich will still pay top bucks, while the middle-size spender can get a beautifully-bred animal (foal or yearling) for a good third less than he would've done in 2007.
A small example is the colt foal I sold to Jim Murphy of Redpender Stud last year. I bought the unraced DANETIME mare i/f to MAJESTIC MISSILE for £5000 at Goff's February Sales in 2008. The foal went to Tatts foal sales and made the minimum bid, which is £840 (800 guineas). The cost to enter the damn sale was £540! Add to that keep, prep fees of around £250, transportation, and the sales house's commission, and I came out with a charming little loss. The ICEMAN filly which Songsheet and I presented failed to make her not absurd reserve of £3000, so we have all of her cost and keep until she's presented as a yearling this year. Neither animal was badly bred, in fact they're the sort of middle-of-the-road animal which forms the backbone of handicap racing, but you appear to be predicating prize money on what a youngster might've cost.
In that case, never mind losing 5% - knock prize money down to 20 Euros and be done with it! (Sickly grinning emoticon here.) And then all Irish races will just simply be won by Magnier/Tabor/McManus, and we can all go home.
A small example is the colt foal I sold to Jim Murphy of Redpender Stud last year. I bought the unraced DANETIME mare i/f to MAJESTIC MISSILE for £5000 at Goff's February Sales in 2008. The foal went to Tatts foal sales and made the minimum bid, which is £840 (800 guineas). The cost to enter the damn sale was £540! Add to that keep, prep fees of around £250, transportation, and the sales house's commission, and I came out with a charming little loss. The ICEMAN filly which Songsheet and I presented failed to make her not absurd reserve of £3000, so we have all of her cost and keep until she's presented as a yearling this year. Neither animal was badly bred, in fact they're the sort of middle-of-the-road animal which forms the backbone of handicap racing, but you appear to be predicating prize money on what a youngster might've cost.
In that case, never mind losing 5% - knock prize money down to 20 Euros and be done with it! (Sickly grinning emoticon here.) And then all Irish races will just simply be won by Magnier/Tabor/McManus, and we can all go home.
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I'm a national hunt man and here's how I see things, having been to a lot of national hunt sales over the last seven or eight years. The sales were made up of four different types of people, the rich, the point-to-point man, the syndicate or middle tier buyer, and the low cost buyer (whether individual or syndicate). They all pushed the sales values up and as it went up our min prizemoney in Ireland went up to 8k. That was whether you won a bumper, a maiden hurdle or a bad race. People were being encouraged to buy cheap horses as they had a chance to get as much prize money as the middle tier buyer. While we all know, particularly in national hunt, that auction price does not always match ability, there is still a strong correlation and you would want to be blind not to realise that 20% of the horses in Ireland over the last five to seven years should not have been bred (and therefore why they are not living for too long if you believe the rumours). But this was driven by the prices the horses were making at the sales, driven by the economy and the prizes on offer. You only had to win one or two races to cover your training costs, irrespective of the level of race. Again madness. So there needs to be a massive correction in the prizemoney similar to what will happen at the sales. The bottom tier of horses need to be uneconomical to keep so they fall out of the system. An prizemoney should match. I put togehter syndicates buying horses at the 20-35k level and I find it really hard to justify spening that money when the next lad can spend 5k and run for the same money.
Sheikh
At the Start
Who said anything about favouring prize money for poorer horse. I'm talking about reasonable prize money for poorer horses. The reason Hri say they are having to take this step is..
If the prizemoney at the bottom becomes unequitable than this phenomenon will snowball. In brief ordinary horses have got to have a chance of paying their way too. The 8 -10k prizemoney for poorer horses was relative to what it was costing to buy them and what trainers where charging to train them.
Givus a break, no one goes out to buy a bad horse and prices paid do not dictate racing ability. And why in particular do the middle grades or lets call them average horses, deserve any greater protection from the recession than the poorer horses.Owners buy at all different prices depending on what they consider value. The mystical 20-30k guy you talk about, shouldn't be paying 20-30k for the same animal this year as 2 years ago. Focusing on the people who spend the money is focusing on anyone who pays training fees, entry fees etc. You pay bigger money at the Sales (if you can) because it gives you a greater chance of getting a good one. The 100k guy you mention has bills to pay too. Sounds to me like your just ring fencing your own patch for protection. A drop in prize money should be equitable but keeping a horse in training should have a reasonable chance of breaking even in any given year on prizemoney. Sacrificing the lower end will only result in less entries etc and will aggravate the situation. There is no nice neat correlation between how much is paid in the Sales ring and what rating band the horse will compete in.
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So how has racing in the UK survived then when the poorest races are run for a couple of grand?? They still seem to have plenty of runners. I've no patch to protect. I'm not in racing for the prizemoney and if it was halved I wouldn't cry. We've put a 100k into Kimberlite King and got back 30k in three wins. If we had received half that it would have been the same. But those lads went outr and paid 27k for their horse and if anyone expects to get a "return" from it, then they should have a better chance than the lads who put in 5k to buy a horse and win the same for a small little handicap somewhere. To the contrary, it is owners of bad horses and the breeders of same that are the loudest voices in the prizemoney debate as they want to maintain something that is no longer sustainable. Why shouldn't racing prizemoney follow the price of horses where the better the horse, the less his price will fall by and in the same light, the worse the race, the more prizemoney % is taken off it.
M
martin
Guest
Cantoris seems to have a strong moral compass on this one - we could do with a fella in England prepared to tell people certain things the hard way.
I haven't a clue where it all went wrong for Irish racing - great country, great horses etc, why so much shite racing? Whats going on over there?
Perhaps people need to swallow their pride and look at how to invest wisely in the future.
sounds like one big rat race gone wrong to me.
I haven't a clue where it all went wrong for Irish racing - great country, great horses etc, why so much shite racing? Whats going on over there?
Perhaps people need to swallow their pride and look at how to invest wisely in the future.
sounds like one big rat race gone wrong to me.
Martin I think you have got the wrong idea....there are plenty of shite horses over here but little in the way of shite races.
Good arguements put forward by both Sheikh and Cantoris.
I knew that's what I meant to say!!! Gal, why did you let me write so much when the one line would have worked perfectly??
It was summed up to me a few years back when a lad I know had a filly rated around 50. She couldn't win a race (placed a few times) and was running at Galway in September on the flat and he said it was prob here last run. I asked him what he was going to do with her and he said "sure what do you think, she's a grand looking mare and I can get her covered for 3k and if the offspring can stand straight, with those looks some fool will pay 10k for him and I'll be a few grand up. Sure at worstI'll cover my costs". I knew then there was a problem and was advocating a rapid rise in the handicap ratings, even higher than where they are now. It's those sorts of lads that are now complaining they can't sell their foals and that the other mare they have (a half sis to the 50 rated above) should be runnng for 8k.......and shes rated 50 too!!
I would be a strong advocate of racing taking it on the chin and making some hard decisions now. Now is the prime time to cut back so when we get out of this mess in four or five years time we have a product which will be on a very upward curve. It might not sound palatible but my manifesto would be to cut the bottom tier of prizemoney by 50% to €4k a race (still higher than Wolverhampton) with a few decent handicaps or restricted conditions races at €15k to give them something to aim at. The middle tier (the bumpers, maiden hurdles/chases, flat handicaps of 70-100, handicap hurdles 90/102+, novice events) should be cut by 20% (I think 15% already in) and the top tier should be cut by 20% with an individual view as to which ones should be cut by more and which ones less. Irish Racing should volunteer this on the condition that no further cuts take place in 2010.
It certainly won't be popular with some owners and trainers or the anti Willie Mullins brigade but I have horses in all those captions and racing needs to take a pull if it is to last the trip. I'll stop ranting now!!