Naas turns into Mecca of racing after UK flu blow
Racing industry shows how closely aligned we are to the UK as Brexit casts a dark shadow, writes Wayne O’Connor
AN extra whiff of excitement was in the air at Naas Racecourse yesterday.
The shutdown of horse-racing in Britain from equine flu meant the Co Kildare venue was hosting the only race meeting in Britain and Ireland.
Millions of horse-racing fans on both islands turned to the Irish venue as the only show in town, with ITV broadcasting five races live.
Racecourse manager Tom Ryan said: “There’s a great atmosphere here today. A couple of our sponsors said they weren’t able to sleep last night, thinking of the huge exposure they will be getting.
“We’re not among the Big Five Irish racecourses that get live coverage from RTE. We only got our first Grade One National Hunt Race in 2015 after 95 years in existence.
“We’re delighted to be in the spotlight today to show Irish racing in its best light.”
Master of ceremonies Thom Malone said there was a “fantastic buzz” and huge amounts of betting money was being focused on Naas. The Place Pot Pool was normally around €5,000 but the concentration of bets for the two islands meant it was around €50,000 yesterday.
Kildare bookmaker Darragh Fitzpatrick said horses at Naas yesterday were attracting untold millions of euro of extra betting as punters all over Britain looked for horses to back.
All the big betting firms in the UK were paying close attention to every alteration being made by the on-course bookies in Naas, he added.
The first race to be broadcast live around Britain and Ireland was the 1.40pm Cavan Developments Maiden Hurdle, with €8,316 for the winner. Advantage Point, ridden by Robbie Colgan, won by a length, watched by millions of TV viewers.
Curragh trainer Edward Harty said: “It’s nice to be the winning trainer in front of such a big captive audience.”
Kathryn McKiernan, whose family owns Cavan Developments, said the family was delighted with the sudden big exposure.
The focus on Naas followed a six-day shutdown of race meetings in Britain.
In all, 174 stables are in quarantine as authorities try to contain the highly contagious disease.
It is too early to say if the Cheltenham Festival, due from March 12-15, will be affected. A clearer picture is expected in the coming days as results of tests are released. Dozens of vets have been dispatched to stables to take swabs for analysis.
British Horseracing Authority officials have announced no new positive cases of the flu — including those from Rebecca Menzies’s yard in Sedgefield, Co Durham — have been detected among more than 700 so far processed.
The BHA said the Animal Health Trust found “no further positive samples” following the six previously detected at Donald McCain’s stable in Cheshire.
It added: “The AHT has received approximately 2,100 nasal swabs and tested and reported on 720. There have been no further positive samples.”
Whether a resumption on Wednesday is feasible is due to be decided tomorrow.
‘If there was no deal, it would be difficult for Irish horses to run in the Grand National’
AN influenza-infused crystal ball emerged last week to give the world its first real glimpse of a post-Brexit world.
The equine flu outbreak in the UK saw barriers erected between Ireland, Britain and France. It provided a glimpse of how the €1bn horseracing and thoroughbred industries will be forced to operate here if Britain leaves the EU without a deal on March 29.
Horses were not allowed travel between the three countries immediately after the British Horseracing Authority confirmed the outbreak last Thursday. Thoroughbred trading was postponed and UK racecourses forced to shut for a week to limit horses coming into contact with each other.
A small number of Irish horses here were identified as equine influenza carriers after running at racecourses in Ayr and Ludlow. They were immediately isolated and quarantined.
Experts within the industry credited a close working relationship between Ireland, the UK and France as the main reason it was possible to take immediate action to prevent the spread of influenza.
The countries operate an agreement allowing horses to cross borders without regulatory checks. Breeders, owners and trainers see time spent at border checks as time lost. Highly strung racehorses and thoroughbreds spending time in veterinary checks at border posts also increases the likelihood of them becoming distressed or injured. Both affect a horse’s performance. It’s bad for business.
The tripartite agreement is based on EU legislation, enabling them to forgo such checks under the basis that each of the countries enforces the most stringent biosecurity measures and animal welfare practices.
The deal will cease to exist in the event of a hard Brexit, much to the concern of industry figures and politicians.
“As the agreement is based on EU legislation on the movement of horses within the EU, the UK cannot be part of the agreement once it becomes a third country,” Agriculture Minister Michael Creed told the Dail last week.
Industry figures are hoping a new arrangement can be agreed with officials in Brussels but the Government has to take a cautious approach until there is a sense of certainty about Britain’s EU exit.
At the moment, a no-deal hard Brexit looks likely.
“As part of this planning, we are upgrading existing border inspection posts and developing additional border inspection posts to cater for the increased volume of inspections necessary, including in respect of equines being imported from the UK and making arrangements to facilitate the certification of horses to the UK as necessary,” Mr Creed said.
This is bad news for an industry worth an estimated €1bn to the Irish economy and a further £1bn to Britain.
Experts are reluctant to put an estimate on the potential damage of a hard Brexit on the equine industry here. They fear it could cause alarm. Few are willing to spend thousands of euro carrying out an analysis of the expected economic impact in case a Brexit deal is agreed at the last minute, rendering such a report useless. Privately, sources admitted they fear a loss of at least €200m per year in export sales.
Fine Gael TD Martin Heydon said this would worry the 16,000 people employed in the sector here. More than 4,000 of those jobs are in his Kildare South constituency.
“If there was ‘no-deal’ at the end of March, it would be far more difficult for Irish horses to travel to Aintree the following week for the Grand National festival,” said Mr Heydon.
“Later that month, we want the best English horses who have been successful in Cheltenham to come and contest in Punchestown. A couple of weeks later, we are in to the height of the breeding season. Some of the top stallions in the world are found in this country, and mares will be travelling to and from this country so that concern is there.”
This concern was escalated last week by the equine flu outbreak. Mr Heydon and industry figures admitted it created a restrictive trading process not dissimilar to what will happen if Britain crashes out of Europe without a deal.
Barriers to movement and trade are bad news for all businesses. The impact temporary travel restrictions for horses and the cancelling of races had on related industries was notable.
It hit local economies around UK racecourses with no punters spending in shops and bars en route to race meetings. The immediate impact of the new restrictions was most measurably observed by bookmakers. Within hours of the UK shutdown, Paddy Power/Betfair saw share prices drop 2.3pc. William Hill took a similar hit. Ladbrokes owners GVC Holdings suffered a 2.7pc hit.
In Naas, the equine flu outbreak provided an unexpected opportunity. It also demonstrates how closely intertwined the Irish and UK equine industries are.
Naas Racecourse hosted the only racing to take place on the two islands yesterday, so ITV upped sticks and changed its plans to feature the Kildare venue for its racing coverage yesterday — the first time the course featured on terrestrial television in Britain.
Officials there stepped up biosecurity measures and each stable was disinfected twice before the meeting took place.
Despite the unique opportunity to be at the centre of the racing world, Naas Racecourse general manager Tom Ryan said there was a considerable worry that this could be the way of the future.
“Nothing highlights how closely aligned we are to the UK industry more than this. As soon as racing stops there they look here to help the thing along. The two countries are joined at the hip for a lot of things but mostly in racing,” he told the Sunday Independent. “Putting up borders threatens that relationship.”
Horse Racing Ireland said the ending of free movement to Ireland’s biggest export market is not something easily remedied. Put simply, the market cannot be replaced.
More than 25,000 horses move between Britain, Ireland and France each year. At least a quarter of these cross the Irish Sea from Ireland. In 2017, Irish trained horses ran in the UK more than 1,500 times and pulled in prize money of €13.4m — a drop in the ocean compared to the sums returned exporting young horses.
Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association chief executive Shane O’Dwyer said foal exports pulled in €271m that year — 80pc of these went to the UK.
“When you are looking at those figures alone, you will see the impact any imposition, any barrier to trade or any [restriction] to movement of horses has on ourselves,” he said.
Another 7,000 horses cross the Northern border every year. Last week, all of this movement stopped. It can start again once the threat of equine flu is contained. However, it could all come to a shuddering halt again on March 29.
More than 16,000 people are directly employed in the industry here. It is responsible for thousands more spin-off jobs. These are people looking for guarantees Britain is not offering.
Industry bodies linked by the tripartite agreement are working to establish a new mechanism to allow trade — the ‘‘Triple H’’ (High Health Horse Document). It must get approval from Brussels if the tripartite agreement is to be replaced in the event of a hard Brexit.
“We operate under a code of practice about biosecurity, vaccinations and more to ensure higher standards of health. Hopefully it will be implemented [but] there is no guarantee on anything,” Mr O’Dwyer said.