Guaranteed rest for Irish jockeys

A one-week holiday during the Irish National Hunt season is to be introduced next summer.

There will be no jump racing in Ireland from Tuesday, June 27 to Wednesday, July 5.

This has been created by Horse Racing Ireland in their fixture list for 2006, which was announced on Tuesday, at the request of both the jockeys and trainers’ associations.

During the busy summer period of May to August, a ‘blank’ day has been included in 12 of the 18 weeks to facilitate those working within the industry and the intention is to extend this policy in future years.

Jason Morris, HRI’s director of racing, said: “We have introduced a break in the National Hunt season during the summer to give jump jockeys a guaranteed gap in their schedules.

“The intention would be to grow the length of this break over a period of years, with a two-week gap being the ideal.”

A one-off fixture at the Curragh on Tuesday, September 19, will launch the new Goffs Million race and supporting programme during Ryder Cup week.

It is intended that the new race will move to the Curragh’s St Leger/National Stakes weekend in future years.

HRI hope that Whit Weekend, at the start of June next year, will be strengthened by the creation of two new two-day meetings – Tramore on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon (June 2 and 3), and Listowel on the Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday (June 4 and 5).

The total number of fixtures in Ireland next year has increased by one to 314.