Number of horses in training in Ireland

BobbyD10

Is there too many horses in training in Ireland..?
The declarations for racing at Punchestown on Sat would suggest so.

Do we need even more meetings to be staged to give some horses a run..?

I'd say for owners who are desperately wanting to see there horse run and is ballotted out on numerous occasions is very frustrating. Especially as they are paying fees, vets etc.

I don't own a horse and probably never will but its a problem the industry has and solutions need to be found.

For me as a punter its a minefield with so many runners and so little chance of picking the right one....lol...

easytiger!

Much as anything I'd say there's no control on breeding, lot of mediocre horses breeding more mediocre horses, and with the fact there's a lot of people around with money than sense. I know a few different fellas that took leases on horses as part of syndicates and the horses they got were more suited to bringing turf from the bog

Colonel Sanders

HRI also had a massive marketing campaign to promote ownership, attracted flocks of new owners without the necessary expansion in the fixture list.

The bottom line is there is massive overproduction of horses and asa result far too many horses who will never finish in the first 10 never mind win a race.

Murta

Prehaps trainers need to be butally honest with owners. Little point in keeping a horse in training if it's not up to much.

wb

I think they should expand the calendar and introduce more lower class racing to cater for these horses. I'm not saying that we should go down the banded route like in Britain, but we should separate the lower class horses from the main. People will complain that it wont be good for punters, but no-one is forced to bet on such races, and it also gives the owner a chance to see the horse run, and maybe win a prize.

knighted

but who is going to pay for the prize money if more races are introduced?

in england the prize money is ajoke 2 or 3 grand -u would want to win 5 times ayear to get ur training fees back -hence the number of gambles that go on -promoting new owners is nessescary as each year u have a very high rate of drop outs who get stiffed by trainers who at the end of the day are running a business and need mug owners and syndicates to pay there bills so its all a big circle -

government give 60 million a year to hri to put into the sport but they are coming under pressure from the public as the money could be redirected to healthcare education etc -but what the public dont realise is that galway festival alone generates 60 million revenue to the local economy so thats a good return on the governments money

knighted

IRELAND YEAR 2005 BREEDING STATISTICS



Number of Stallions
Thoroughbreds 405
Pure Arabs 0
Trotters 0
SUBTOTAL 405



Number of Mares
Thoroughbreds 18,817
Pure Arabs 0
Trotters 0
SUBTOTAL 18,817



Number of Births 2003
Thoroughbreds 10,574
Pure Arabs 0
Trotters 0
SUBTOTAL 10,574



Number of Births 2004
Thoroughbreds 10,992
Pure Arabs 0
Trotters 0
SUBTOTAL 10,992



Number of Births 2005
Thoroughbreds 11,748
Pure Arabs 0
Trotters 0
SUBTOTAL 11,748

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80% of the racing in the world is done in 10 countries


Global statistics of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) today showed healthy developments of the sector in most countries. Statistics of over 50 countries have been collected and analysed by the IFHA. They can be found at our facts & figures section under racing and wagering menus on this site. Some of the more interesting conclusions that can be drawn from the statistics:

Breeding

Thoroughbred foaling remains stable at around 114,000 births in 2003. The USA remains the largest breeding nation with around 30% of world foals, followed by Australia (13%) and Ireland (9%).

Racing

80% of racing in the world is done in only 10 countries. Leaders here are the USA with 108,000 races, followed by Australia (37,000) and Canada (32,000).

There is slightly more flat racing (51,4%) than trotting (46,3%) with the remaining 2,3% for jump racing. Trotting is growing strongly in Russia (+5%) and Norway (+4%).

Purses

The average prize money per race for flat racing is highest in Hong Kong (98,700 Euros), followed by the United Arab Emirates (58,180) and Japan (31,520). The average prize money per obstacle race in Japan is a stunning 190,920. Among the main racing nations, the Great Britain showed the strongest growth in purses by 16,8 % from 2002 to 2003.

Many Asian countries have a healthy balance between the annual costs of maintaining a horse and prize money. Average prize money in 2003 grew from 78% to 100% os annual maintenance costs in India and from 146% to 189% in Korea. In South America, Argentina saw average prize money grow from 185% to 246% of annual maintenance costs.

Betting

Japan remains by far the most important betting country with over 25 billion € betting volume. The UK and USA are almost equal with almost 14 billion €. The numbers for the other main racing nations are Australia 8.7 billion €, France 7.2 B€ and Hong Kong 6.6 B€. The recent currency fluctuations (weakening od the US$) has off course had an impact on our rankings.

Nations showing the largest percentage increase in betting are Macau, up 91%, Argentine, up 33% and the UK, up 31%.

A document with charts and analysis is available (via pdf) by clicking here, or upon request and can be sent to you by email

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