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I see in the Telegraph today that Irish racing are reporting a 9% drop in racecourse attendance, on course betting down 18% and bloodstock sales down a somewhat staggering 43.6%.
Does this mean the recent (last 20 years or so) improvement in the quality of Irish owned/trained bloodstock will be on the wane?
Will we see less of the tricolour at Cheltenham in future?
Will there be any fall-out for the Ballydoyle contingent or are they credit-crunch proof?
I’m pretty sure that Stallion Fees are no longer tax-exempt in Ireland so maybe in 20 years time we will be seeing a lot of (SWI) after horses’ names on our racecourses.
Surely its related to what’s happening within the country? Properties have dropped drasticaaly in value, no one is buying anything……….the world recession has hit Ireland extremely hard.
Lots of dreamers out there think it will bounce back but there simply isn’t any funds out there. It will be along haul and will get worse before it gets better. Racing being a part of entertainment people can live without will no doubt feel the sharp end of the stick.
Hope that didn’t depress you too much
The figures make grim reading, particularly for the bloodstock industry. The drop in racecourse attendance can be attributed to several different factors though. We lost several important race days in the autumn when the weather was cat. Listowel, Tralee, Galway (September) and the Champion Stakes day at Leopardstown were all affected.
The recession is hitting hard over here but the reduction in government funding is going to hurt Irish racing the most. Over the past 10-15 years prominent members of the cabinet like Charlie McCreevy and John O’Donoghue looked after racing’s interests but now that they are gone, I doubt the government are going to be as generous to the racing industry.
GUYS
You have got to remember to go racing is just to expensive just like many other things.The people selling their products get to greedy , the idiots including myself that buy the products (horse racing industry)are just as much to blame. We put up with the crap that is put forward and we pay the price when it all goes tits up.An example, i watched a programme on Sir Alan Sugar last night, he mentioned that the Sky dishes that Amstrad made for Sky cost just £1 to produce, by the time the public bought the product the cost was £199.I do’nt think many would turn that kind of profit down but eventually if there are to many greedy businesses, somthing has to give.Why does racing not want to learn from Towcester what is so wrong with letting people in for free to encourage people back to racing.Only when Paddy Power Isle of Man Ltd (amongst other "Irish" bookmakers) are forced to cough up a fair share of their Irish Racing profits, profits obtained on SP’s that can only be described as truly shameful, will the boom bust pattern be avoided.
I don’t see how the Irish racing industry can plan any financial longterm based on the goodwill of whatever shower of morons are "running" the country at any one particular time.
- Total Posts 17716
We’re not in as bad a financial situation as the media would have us believe (after all, it’s in the government’s interests to get as much money back into the banks via savings as possible), with much of the hysteria we are witnessing down to nothing more than scaremongering. The property market is in obvious decline, but that was the case before word of the credit crunch hit the public domain. Associated industries will also be affected, but the retail sector could ‘survive’ if only we weren’t being encouraged to stop spending.
The fact is our ‘economic breakdown’ was always going to come at some point, whether Fannie May and Freddie Mac had collapsed or not. Much like the basic supply and demand model, countries can’t continue to grow exponentially without something having to give somewhere. We’re told that a lack of available money is preventing recovery, but those funds didn’t exist in the first place.
Taking Britain as an example, we’ve been operating in a false economy ever since Labour came into power. Our supposed growth came from continued borrowing (again, money which never existed) and saw Gordon Brown alter reporting laws so that he could continually write off the country’s debt year after year, allowing him to state that he had adhered to his original promises and met all of his predictions. The fact that he has been hailed the world’s saviour must have him p*ssing himself behind closed doors.
All that is happening now is that we’re returning to a more sensible level. That will be the case until the market is flooded with money, lowering the relative value of our cash and ensuring wages are increased above the level of inflation. The economy will then grow on borrowed money for another 15-20 years before we’re again faced with this situation.
And so it will continue.
Some countries will see a greater slow down than others, but that’s the nature of finance. The world has never operated on a level playing field and nor will it do so at times such as these. But money is still available, and many industries will soldier on and be little worse for it.
Take a look at the roads tomorrow and think about if they appear any quieter.
Equitrack,
Are you suggesting things aren’t that bad?! I don’t know what you do for a living but from my recent experience things really are that bad.
2008’s financial crisis or credit crunch will be taught in history lessons in school classrooms very soon..
"We’re not in as bad a financial situation as the media would have us believe"
Correct Equitrack – things are probably worse.
Almost every respected financial commentator worldwide recognises that the world is facing unprecedented economic difficulty. The very banks themselves have had to be shored up by governmenst across the globe. Iceland is on it’s knees. We have the lowest lending rate ever in our ENTIRE HISTORY to try and ancourage borrowing/spending.
Quite how that fails to qualify as a major crisis I don’t quite understand.
yes, we may get through it and probably will in the end, economics tending to be cyclical, but there will be plenty casualties along the way and I suspect the racing industry and particularly bloodstock, reliant as it is on the wealthy having cash to burn, will suffer markedly in the next couple of years, and not only in Ireland either.
It strikes me that you don’t have to be in possession of a degree from the LSE to realise that the dangerous combination (IMO) of near-zero interest rates and the mooted printing of money, means that we and the rest of the capitalist world is in dire straits. If it doesn’t, then why haven’t these seemingly drastic methods been employed to ‘kick-start’ us out of previous recessions…or have they?
Tough times ahead, if academically most interesting
the river of no return
While certainly going through a rough time to suggest Irish racing is in "crisis" is somewhat of a tabloid headline Cormack!
We’re not in as bad a financial situation as the media would have us believe (after all, it’s in the government’s interests to get as much money back into the banks via savings as possible), with much of the hysteria we are witnessing down to nothing more than scaremongering. The property market is in obvious decline, but that was the case before word of the credit crunch hit the public domain. Associated industries will also be affected, but the retail sector could ‘survive’ if only we weren’t being encouraged to stop spending.
The fact is our ‘economic breakdown’ was always going to come at some point, whether Fannie May and Freddie Mac had collapsed or not. Much like the basic supply and demand model, countries can’t continue to grow exponentially without something having to give somewhere. We’re told that a lack of available money is preventing recovery, but those funds didn’t exist in the first place.
Taking Britain as an example, we’ve been operating in a false economy ever since Labour came into power. Our supposed growth came from continued borrowing (again, money which never existed) and saw Gordon Brown alter reporting laws so that he could continually write off the country’s debt year after year, allowing him to state that he had adhered to his original promises and met all of his predictions. The fact that he has been hailed the world’s saviour must have him p*ssing himself behind closed doors.
All that is happening now is that we’re returning to a more sensible level. That will be the case until the market is flooded with money, lowering the relative value of our cash and ensuring wages are increased above the level of inflation. The economy will then grow on borrowed money for another 15-20 years before we’re again faced with this situation.
And so it will continue.
Some countries will see a greater slow down than others, but that’s the nature of finance. The world has never operated on a level playing field and nor will it do so at times such as these. But money is still available, and many industries will soldier on and be little worse for it.
Take a look at the roads tomorrow and think about if they appear any quieter.
Probably most of the guys don’t know your an accountant and you should know what you are talking about but there is a huge flaw in your argument.
where will the money that has to flood the market come from? Banks simply are not lending as there is no money to lend.
Sure the roads won’t get any quiter but ou will see a lot less new cars this year.
Here in Asia the Euro has taken an absolute hammering. I am building a penthouse on top of a building for an Irish client. He transferred fund over last month it cost him just under 1 million baht more than it would have a few months ago.
Everything from shops to bars to beaches are stone dead and real estate sales have come to a grinding halt……foreigners have simply stopped investing in the hope there will be a recovery. Won’t be this side of 2011 IMO.
I think the Euro which seemed a great idea has backfired on individual counties. There is no flexibility and countries tied into it are stumped. The market needs Drachma Lira Francs etc which they no longer have.
Question……Do you see this as a new starting point for the World which ismore realistic than it was, with Asian countries getting stronger and Western countries weakening?
Probably most of the guys don’t know your an accountant and you should know what you are talking about but there is a huge flaw in your argument.
where will the money that has to flood the market come from? Banks simply are not lending as there is no money to lend.
Sure the roads won’t get any quiter but ou will see a lot less new cars this year.
Here in Asia the Euro has taken an absolute hammering. I am building a penthouse on top of a building for an Irish client. He transferred fund over last month it cost him just under 1 million baht more than it would have a few months ago.
Fists
You need to work ? I thought you just sat around getting ratarsed whilst relieving your local bookie of his bahts. Another illusion shattered !
I thought you just sat around getting ratarsed whilst relieving your local bookie of his bahts
Ditto Aaron. I’m gutted. It feels just like the moment I was told Santa is just me Dad in a false beard.
Equitrack – I don’t know what planet you think you’re on but things are very, very bad indeed.
People are losing jobs by their hundreds and indeed thousands on a daily basis, you can interpret media scaremongering how you like but the basic facts are undeniable.
Eventually this will hit the elite worlds of bloodstock sales etc, the shift in tax for Irish breeders is interesting but they still have the knowledge and the bloodlines to produce horses that will sell.
Kirsten Rausing raised very interesting point in her recent speech regarding the breeding of racehorses in which she encouraged those who still can afford to buy to revamp their mare roster and introduce new bloodlines to their existing foundation families. Absolutely right.
Recession may hit and things will of course change, from a racing perspective it will be fascinating to see which breeders come out of it having capitalised on the current economy. [/url]
GuysI joined a section that processed Jobseekers Allowence in September 2007, between then and August 2008 I saw a month by increase in people claiming that benifit.
I was in the tea room at work and talking too one of the floor walkers, she told me our clients had changed in the last six months from the unemployable too working people who had lost their jobs because of the credit crunch, in the past they would have swiftly found work, now they are on our books for longer as their simply isnt the work out their at the moment.
We are lucky, that Bitch Thatcher killed entire communties when she shut the mines,m earlier in my career I was managed by a women who worked for the department during those times, it was not a pleasant time, the places have not recovered and are dead zones.
I note that Middleham Park Racing bought allot of yearlings last year, they have bought four last year. That tells its own story..
A filly I assicated was trained in Newmarket, she mostly owned by Irish farmers, this year she will be put with a local trainer over who charges less and wont be put into training till she is three weeks off a run.
I find myslef looking at ferry times too Ireland….
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