Nearly 3,000 races are run in Ireland every year but maybe racing’s single most important annual result is the sum of money given to it by government in a yearly game of reveal that once again takes place in next Tuesday’s budget.
It is a ritual that’s both financial fact and a weathervane for opinion towards the sport.
What goes into the Horse & Greyhound Fund ultimately boils down to ministerial whim. It is discretionary at heart. That makes it vulnerable to public sentiment, which is the bread-and-butter business of politicos everywhere.
Irish racing got €76 million in State funding for 2024. In its new strategic plan, Horse Racing Ireland is aiming towards getting to a figure of over €92 million by 2028. The vagaries of such projections are underlined by how a previous strategic plan had a €98 million target by this year.
All of it makes for an annual collective intake of breath from those in racing about its place in government affections, a reflex often matched by gasps of indignation from those who aren’t.
It’s hard to think of any other relatively minor budget allocation that provokes so much visceral resentment among so many.
Other sporting bodies look enviously at what racing has got over more than two decades and accuse variously striped governments of giving the gee-gees preferential treatment. Opposition politicians paint vivid pictures of ordinary working people subsidising the rich at play.
Perhaps the only unanimity among all concerned is on how government aid has transformed the sector. Calculations might get embellished, but it is worth a couple of billion a year, generates plenty rural jobs and is a globally recognised example of Irish excellence.
It should make it a straightforward win-win for government and racing, but the annual guessing game underlines how it’s not so simple.
Racing has long argued for its funding to be ring-fenced and various governments have said no. That might be a control thing, or a political wriggle-room thing, but the result is a certain uneasiness at this time of year for all that State backing has remained notably staunch even in trying circumstances.
Maybe that’s why racing’s capacity to foul its own nest, while adopting a high horse attitude to some of the scrutiny that inevitably comes with State help, is so resented. There’s a smell of entitlement there that can make it a tough sell in the court of public opinion.
This has been another fraught reputational year and it’s far from over yet. But the fallout from the RTÉ Investigates programme into equine traceability, and those shocking scenes of brutality at the Shannonside abattoir, continues to linger.
Although there was no evidence of wrongdoing linked to anyone in racing, the programme left little doubt that the industry is badly wanting when it comes to the fate of too many of the performers around which its whole enterprise revolves.
The critical focus underlined a growing popular gaze increasingly willing to believe the worst of animal-based sports. If that isn’t checked by systems that supply a meaningful counter argument, then presuming the money hose is going to run and run might presume too much.
At this point, it’s hard not to think there’s an element around Cabinet, and particularly in the Department of Agriculture, Food & Marine, muttering to itself that these horsey types might give it something more to work with in terms of selling what is effectively an annual grant.
Given glaring gaps when it comes to equine traceability and whole of life care, the perennial anti-doping fight, and such close identification with an increasingly unfashionable gambling industry, there’s hardly a shortage of urgent priorities that could be addressed with this money.
However, the policy thrust from Horse Racing Ireland continues to look little more than variations on a theme of distributing more prizemoney. It’s a blueprint redolent of old attitudes that amounted to little more than racing taking the money and inviting everyone to mind their own business.
Since government is the money, it’s within its rights to demand a different kind of tune from the piper. It might also be entitled to demand resources be rerouted to priority issues that could help reassure public opinion, and voters, that the State is getting suitable bang for its buck.
Otherwise, the game risks being open to even more attack from increasingly vociferous critics. Consensus can change and bracing lessons from the upcoming new gambling legislation underline how those days when the sport had friends in high political places are fading.
Industry brass has surely taken note, to the extent of realising that the cost of investing in public confidence now will dwarf what might be coming down the line.
For now, though, the budget white flag is raised, and sector fingers are crossed that another tough year of self-inflicted reputational gaffes haven’t shaken executive confidence. The worrying political context is how cock-a-hoop so many in the wider world will be if it has.
Something for the Weekend
Big prizemoney is the Curragh Autumn weekend’s selling point and Lightning Bear (2.00) can pick up a €250,000 first prize in tomorrow’s Goffs 500. Through the sales ring at just €5,000, Wesley Joyce’s mount won his maiden at Down Royal when beating a subsequent winner.
Group One prestige is up for grabs in Newmarket tomorrow where two proven Irish top-flight stars, Babouche and Lake Victoria, go head-to- head in the Cheveley Park Stakes. The French filly Daylight (2.25) could be value to trump them as she had nowhere to go at a vital point in last month’s Prix Morny won by Whistlejacket.