Saturday, September 24, 2011
TALKING to a number of trainers during the Listowel festival one had to be sympathetic to the plight in which many of them currently find themselves.
This is yet another part of what can be best described as hidden Ireland. While on the surface they are putting on a brave face, there is little doubt that, underneath the bonnet, you are dealing with people who are struggling badly to stay afloat.
It really is a case of the strong getting stronger and the weak, and the not so weak not so long ago, getting weaker by the day.
One trainer related how he now has 15 horses in his care, down from 60 in the so-called boom times.
Another has 20, having had twice as many not that long ago. And, sadly, there are others who are actually doing even worse.
Then you have trainers who cannot get paid for at least some of the inmates in their care. And there is no end in sight, nor are most of them hopeful that things will improve any time soon. It is a sad state of affairs, with a number of trainers almost certainly literally hanging on by the proverbial fingernails.
Will there be relatively high-profile casualties in the near future? The word is that such a possibility is far from being a 100-1 shot.
Meanwhile, the funding of racing continues to be a massive bone of contention, as we wait and wait for the government to finally show its hand.
On-course bookmaker for over 30 years, Padraic Carty, entered the fray last weekend. Carty is well respected and a committee member of the Irish National Bookmakers' Association.
He floated the notion of a 5% tax on winnings off-course, with half of it going to racing. Carty believes that most punters would not object to handing back 5% of their winnings, as this principle has already been well established for users of betting exchanges.
Well yes, but it is hardly the same thing. There are two reasons why the half-decent off-course punter thinks that is perfectly acceptable.
Take someone who wants say five grand on a horse. He knows that to get on he has to play with Betfair, because there is little or no possibility of his wager being taken in a betting office.
If he was to arrive at an office with five large in readies they would either humiliate him at the counters or send for the guards!
The second reason why someone doesn't mind paying 5% to the exchanges is because he will be playing at bigger odds, compared to what's available from bookmakers.
If a horse is 3-1 off a show then chances are he may well be as high as 4-1 on Betfair.
A simple mathematical calculation reveals why punters pay on Betfair, almost with a smile.
If you have 4-1 to €5,000 on Betfair your profit will be €19,000, with the tax seeing €1,000 going to Betfair.
If you have €5,000 at 3-1 with an off-course bookmaker, the profit, under Carty's plan, will be €14,250, with a tax of €750 being withheld to fund racing.
Maybe, it's a bit of an extreme example, perhaps not by much at the same time, but the message is crystal clear.
The other thing, of course, which continues to puzzle is why should off-course punters be expected to fund Irish racing? In my experience the vast majority of regular off-course punters hardly ever attend a race meeting.
And why should the guy who had a couple of hundred on Dublin last Sunday, or who only ever backs Manchester United, have 5%, or any percentage, of his winnings deducted so that Irish racing can continue to behave as it has been allowed to for the last ten years or whatever?
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