The body that represents the country’s 26 racecourses has said it hopes a compromise can be reached in relation to how much money Horse Racing Ireland gets out of any new media rights deal.
A proposed new deal expected to be worth well over €40 million a year to Irish racing is likely to be put to tracks for voting within the coming weeks.
HRI’s media rights committee, which is legislatively charged with negotiating for all 26 racecourses as a single block, has been working out details with Satellite Information Services (SIS) and Racecourse Media Group (RMG) which operates the Racing TV channel.
The proposed new five-year deal is due to start in 2024 and would see SIS/RMG continue to operate Irish racing’s pictures as they have done since the previous deal was ratified in 2018.
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However, a potential spanner in the works has emerged with five racetracks – Thurles, Kilbeggan, Limerick, Sligo and Roscommon – claiming that their trust in HRI when it comes to media rights has “collapsed.”
The five tracks have formed United Irish Racecourses due to long-running dissatisfaction over how much HRI gets for providing data in relation to daily runners and riders.
UIR has also argued the current deal favours bigger tracks with more black-type races, a situation complicated by racing’s semistate ruling body owning Leopardstown, Fairyhouse, Navan and Tipperary.
UIR’s secretary, Paddy Dunican, has said that HRI has “taken hundreds of thousands of Euros” in data charges that are taken at a much higher percentage than is the case with British tracks.
The UIR courses remain part of the Association of Irish Racecourses although the formal emergence of the new organisation has underlined the depth of division within the various parties involved in a deal of vital importance to the industry’s finances.
It emerged last year that HRI, which oversees racing and breeding in this country, gets 16 per cent of revenue generated by media rights under the current deal.
It maintains that is ploughed back into the sport and industry while the UIR tracks argue the percentage is too high. It has also complained of a lack of transparency to date with any new deal.
AIR’s chief executive Paddy Walsh, who is on the media rights committee chaired by Punchestown boss, Conor O’Neill, has played down suggestions of a split.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve done deals like this, and it wouldn’t be the first time different views have been expressed by different racecourses or groups of racecourses.
“In the past we’ve always managed to get everybody home on deals that have been very beneficial for Irish racing, and we would hope to do the same again, he said.
Walsh, who steps down from role as chief executive of AIR at the end of March, wouldn’t comment on specifics on any new deal but indicated individual details will be made available to each track in the coming weeks before any vote on acceptance.
Asked if a compromise might be possible, including on what HRI gets for data, he replied: “I’d like to think so. That’s what we’re aiming for.” He added: “I think we’ll have a very good proposal to put to them (tracks) and we’ll see what they say.”
Walsh said disputes were inevitable between 26 separate legal entities but stressed that UIR remains “very much part of the AIR grouping.” He also said more details can be made available to courses when the final deal is presented.
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“We’ve given racecourses the overall bones of the deal. We did a presentation with SIS and RMG (in November.) There was no detail in terms of what each individual racecourse might get out of it, but the detail of what racecourses collectively would be getting out of it was all there and we went through all that with them. I think, generally speaking, people were very happy in overall terms.
“Some racecourses were of the view that HRI were getting too much out of the current deal. Everybody was looking forward to seeing what would be involved individually and we were sent off to finalise those negotiations and we’ve been doing that since.
“We’re at a stage now where we would hope to be meeting the racecourses very shortly to let them know where we’re at and what progress we’ve made in negotiations,” Walsh commented.
In other news, Energumene remains an odds-on favourite for Saturday’s rescheduled Grade 1 Clarence House at Cheltenham’s Trials Day fixture.
The race was lost to the weather at Ascot last week but despite much less prize money being up for grabs after its transfer to Cheltenham, there were half a dozen acceptors at Monday’s acceptance stage.
That’s three more than the same stage last week and they include the supplemented Editeur De Gite from Gary Moore’s yard.
The main danger to Willie Mullins’s two-mile champion however is likely to remain Edwardstone although Energumene is still as short as 1-2 to come out on top.
Other potential Irish interest on a nine-race programme at Cheltenham is likely to include Noble Yeats who could face Protektorat in the Paddy Power Costwold Chase, a race that also has Cape Gentleman among 11 five-day entries.
Last season’s cross-country champion Delta Work is among 17 left in the Glenfarclas handicap chase on Saturday.
His potential opposition includes no less than the 2021 Grand National hero Minella Times with Henry de Bromhead keeping open the option of switching JP McManus’s star to the new discipline.
