Government’s increased support of horse racing not enough to stem falling Prize money

It was pointed out to me last week that one of the supporting races at the upcoming Champion Chase day meeting in Down Royal has dropped significantly in prize money.

The Kildress Plumbing Handicap Hurdle which is set to take place at Down Royal on Saturday 31 October has a total prize pool of €25,000 this year compared to €40,000 in each of the last six years.

The race is a 0-140 handicap hurdle run over an extended two miles and has been a permanent fixture on Down Royal's biggest race day for the last twenty years.

It is concerning that two decades ago, in 2006, this race had a total prize pool of €65,000.

In today's money that would equate to €90,128, but even ignoring inflation the value of this race has dropped by over 60% in twenty years.

What is even more remarkable is that a very similar race took place at Listowel last month - The Ballymore Handicap Hurdle which was the feature race on the Friday of that festival - with a total prize pool of €100,000.

How can there be such discrepancies between the prize money at different tracks for similar races? And how can any race drop from €40,000 to €25,000 from one year to the next?

The first six horses home in the Guinness Galway Hurdle at the end of July are all eligible for the 0-140 handicap hurdle at Down Royal at the end of this month, but it is hard to see their connections being overly excited about the prospect of racing for less than 10% of the Galway pot.

A race with a far longer history in the Irish racing calendar is the Birdcatcher Premier Nursery Handicap at Naas.

One of the longest running races in Ireland is named in honour of one of the greatest stallions of the nineteenth century who died in tragic circumstances at Conyngham Lodge on the Curragh in 1860 (look it up).

It was sad to see only seven horses, and not one of them rated higher than 88, line up for the latest renewal of the race at Naas last Saturday. The Birdcatcher was traditionally one of the best betting heats of the Flat season, with big fields of quality horses and there was always a real buzz on the run up to the race.

It appears there is an obvious reason why the popularity of juvenile handicaps such as the Birdcatcher has waned. The proliferation of big pots available to two-year-olds in Sales races is driving connections to focus their attention away from these premier handicaps.

Sunday's Auction Series Final, also held at Naas and worth €120,000, contained at least eight runners that would have previously been aimed at the Birdcatcher.

Only the week before a two-year-old in the UK, Night In Vegas, brought his season's earnings to over £600,000 when landing his third Sales race in a row.

Pink Venom pocketed €30,000 for connections by winning Saturday's Birdcatcher Premier Nursery, plus another €20,000 bonus having won an earlier race in the new Birdcatcher Series.

Back in 2008 when Kevin Manning won the Birdcatcher for the seventh time, partnering Tomas An Tsioda to beat 15 rivals, the winner's purse was over €45,000.

This year's race had a total prize pool of €50,000, compared to €70,000 in 2008. Another significant drop without factoring in inflation.

Switching topics, prize money is certainly not an issue when it comes to the €5 million Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, but even that enormous pot was not enough to tempt the connections of the race's dual winner Daryz to try for a third win in Europe's richest race and he instead heads off to stud.

The decision to allow geldings to run in the big race in France from next year was hardly the deciding factor for the colt's connections, but that recent announcement by the French racing authorities continues to divide racing's fans and professionals.

An online petition has even been set up by a leading breeder in France to try to convince the French authorities to change their mind and this petition has received public support from the likes of Coolmore Stud, who are encouraging people to sign it.

One argument put forward by those opposing the introduction of geldings to the race is that it is a stallion-making race, but that doesn't hold much water as the race has always been open to fillies and mares, and on 26 separate occasions one of them has lifted the prize.

Even Coolmore themselves regularly run fillies in the race and ran two in this year's renewal.

The French authorities are simply trying to produce the best fields possible for their iconic race by bringing it in line with other high-profile all age Group 1 contests around the world. Races such as the Breeders' Cup Turf, Japan Cup, Eclipse Stakes, King George and Juddmonte Stakes all allow geldings to participate.

To my mind there are far bigger issues facing the sport than whether or not geldings run in this particular Group 1 race, but so far almost 1,200 people have gone to the trouble of adding their signatures to the petition.

Last week's Irish Government budget saw a welcome increase in the financial support for horse racing, the first increase for three years, with the industry's share of the Horse and Greyhound Fund set to rise to €81.6 million in 2027.

This represents a 3% increase of €2.3 million on this year's allocation which in reality barely matches inflation, but also comes with a significant caveat from the Government.

Martin Heydon, Minister for Agriculture, Food & the Marine, said: “The proposed increase in the Fund will be linked to the implementation of the Indecon Review's recommendations in respect of equine and greyhound welfare and integrity.”

The Indecon Review cited Horse Racing Ireland's (HRI) intention to increase its annual spend on equine welfare by 70% by 2028. Increasing their equine welfare budget from €3.5 million (2023) to around €6 million per year by 2028.

The increase in horse racing's allocation from the Government for next year will just about cover HRI's committed spending on equine welfare, never mind integrity. This could mean there won't be anything left to use elsewhere.

So much for me thinking HRI could use some of the modest windfall to bump up the prize money for a 0-140 handicap hurdle at Down Royal or the historic Birdcatcher at Naas. The chances of any of the money trickling down to prize money looks extremely thin.