Peter Savill has proposed that the British Horseracing Board pay a fee to Irish racing's ruling body from its sale of television pictures and rights to Irish bookmakers. From May 1st, the rights and delivery of British racing will be sold directly to Irish bookmakers by the BHB instead of through SIS.

Speaking at Saturday night's Moyglare Dinner, Savill, the BHB chairman, said: "When racing jurisdictions such as ours make their product available to your punters to bet on, there is an obligation upon us to see that some share of that revenue is returned to Irish racing. The Americans call it a Source Market Fee and I shall be discussing the concept with my board and Horse Racing Ireland in the coming months."

Savill was the guest speaker at the 21st Moyglare and used the occasion to offer advice to those in charge of racing in Ireland, such as the desirability of reducing Government involvement in the industry. "While it may seem ungrateful to recommend you encourage Government to reduce its involvement in Irish racing, I strongly suspect it suits neither party to have Government too involved," he said.

Savill also urged the new HRI board to reduce the number of its sectional interests and let its executives run the industry. "You have appointed an excellent chief executive in Brian Kavanagh. Give him his head, give him enough money to hire good people, and let him get on with it," advised Savill.