On-course betting continues to toil

Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) yesterday released a strong set of almost universally positive statistics for 2016, the clear exception being on-track betting activity, which continues to decline amidst an evolving betting industry.

The number of fixtures was up marginally on the previous year, but there was a significant increase in the number of entries in National Hunt and Flat races alike, with runners totalling almost 29,000, up 5% on 2015.

That figure tallied with an increase in the number of horses in training (up 4.2% to 6,561), while the number of active owners in the sport increased marginally to 3,663, of which 705 were new owners.