Ruby Walsh: Why are horse owners choosing to invest their money in Ireland more than ever before?

To think the Irish-based trainers, participating at the UK’s marquee National Hunt event, could depart for home with 75% of the races won is a prospect Irish people should be proud of

DOMINANT FORCE: Irish-trained horses routed the British 19-9 in the 2017 Cheltenham Festival and the odds suggest a similar level of dominance is again on the cards this week. Picture: Cody Glenn/Sportsfile

I am not certain I ever envisaged a day when Irish trainers would train the winners of 19 races at a single Cheltenham Festival, but they did just that in 2017.

However, as I look at the ante-post betting and make-up for this week’s renewal, I find it equally unthinkable that I am trying to pick which races the English trainers might win.

I can’t even believe I have just written that — but it’s a fact.

Ireland has the ante-post favourite in three of the four Grade Ones tomorrow, all four on Wednesday, two of the three on Thursday and two of the three on Friday.

In the other 14 races — nine handicaps and five lesser conditions’ races — the lie of the land is eight for Ireland, five the UK and one for France. So, basically, it is 19 Irish ante-post favourites to eight for the UK and one for France.

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Obviously, all the favourites don’t and won’t win, but the shift in balance of power from one side of the Irish Sea to the other has been incredible. And I can’t really say why. Of the 28 horses who are ante-post favourites this week, not one is owner-bred, so therefore all 28 were on the open market to be purchased at some point by their now respective owners.

Four of tomorrow’s favourites started here in point-to-points and the other three raced in France. Of Wednesday’s, one started here in a bumper, two in point-to-points, three in France and one in an English point.

Of Thursday’s, three are ex-French, two started on the track in the UK and two in point-to-points here. And on Friday, three came from France, two started off in bumpers over here, one in a point-to-point and one on the flat in the UK.

The spread does not point anyone in a certain direction but somehow 19 of them landed in the yards of trainers based in Ireland — and that has me thinking. There is little doubt the quality of people training horses here is a huge asset but there are many fine trainers in the UK so why are owners choosing to invest their money here now more than ever before?

You can’t say it’s economical, as neither country is towering over the other in a financial way. If anything, there will always be more money in the UK than there is here, but it has to be something and the only difference I can see between both is the standard level of prize money.

We have significantly different funding systems but the way HRI is supporting prize money levels here is one of the major attractions for people to invest in Irish-trained horses.

And the ease by which, in normal circumstances, horses can now be transported means it is just as easy for Irish horses to race in the UK as it is at some of the distant Irish tracks.

Some of the marquee UK race meetings are easily accessed but, whatever the reasons are, the strength of the Irish-based horses that began to depart for UK on Saturday to race this week is unimaginable.

To think by next Friday, the Irish-based trainers, participating at the UK’s marquee National Hunt event, could depart for home with 75% of the races won is a prospect Irish people should be proud of.

We have always had a long association with exporting our best stock and riders but because of the investment our trainers are bringing in, both are staying put.

We are no longer the ones who have to travel to find success and seek reward in horse racing.

We always had the best people and horses, which, in recent times, we have been able to keep but more importantly people are coming here to help us import, invest, and succeed.

The best talent is staying on this tiny Island and the rest want a piece of the action. So, perhaps now, off the back of what might just be about to happen, it is time for those in charge to look at expansion.

It is time to try to grow the sport with even better prize money, to grow the audience and help expand the training ranks. You know what they say: Strike while the iron is hot — and it’s about to get red hot.