thats why you get rubbish racing in britain

Workrider,

an interesting point you make and Irish racing has clearly been the healthier over recent years. But, with the state of the Irish economy, how are they able to keep prize levels so high?

The Irish have banned FOBT's so the bookies there promote racing unlike here where all the non-levy products are furiously promoted.

That's a good enough answer imo !

Poor stuff forv a bank holiday.There again a poor card will ssill attract people if they fancy a day at the sports.Not concerned about quality.

look at the % Irish bookies bet to......

10 meeting in Ireland this week
37 in UK

for a start we have a goverment that understands the importance of horse racing to ireland .billions of euro generated from breeding etc etc .

Yes, workrider, but haven't they announced the end of the VAT exemption on bloodstock sales?

overseas , what about the english national ffs 178 % :^0

yes loper your right massive goverment cuts to racing , but we had in place a structure that enabled irish racing to gradually slowdown rather than meltdown . we still have hard decisions to make in the next coupe of years.

yes they have too much dross racing in britain. they should streamline it but they wont the bookies want the dross to keep the betting shops busy. in ireland they could do with having a good few more meetings.

I said the GN on another thread Workrider.....I dont mind irish racing btw..but the books % are a joke day in day out tbf..

santa agree re dross and british bookies , its a sad state of affairs when the tail wags the dog .

Guernsey races today, 20k prize money , 5 races, P D Evans and G Moore carve up of the prize money ;) both sent good horses, Toux les doux , Penang Cinta too name two.

Nice day out.

http://www.guernseyrace.org.gg/

The field sizes in Ireland mean that racing could easily have expanded into far more meetings, but with the current economic climate, the decision to resist expansion in the heady times means that Irish racing looks, structurely, in far better shape than the UK to cope with the economic downturn.

overseas , i was over at exeter and cheltenham a few weeks ago and some of the place terms would have made dick turpin blush ffs :^0 also at sedgefield and kelso last year had trouble getting bets of £200/ £300 bets on at the track . so dont fool yourself mate .

a good synopsis of irish racing loper .

I am not fooling myself Workrider....appreciate that the UK books are no saints...but Irish racing with the books means you could never bet on track.....Dundalk on a Friday night is very bad..

agree wth you re dundalk overseas .

OVERSEAS - You get plenty of value at the head of the market. You would be crazy to lay a 100/1 in ireland with plenty of these plot horses throughout the season. Also in England there is more liquidity with the bigger prices, so bookmakers on track can trade off, which is most likely what they do.

agree Vinnie....also I think (maybe it has changed) but I understood that the Irish Books werent allowed to use BF to hedge....

Massive cut-backs to the funding of ALL aspects of Irish racing were announced in the last Irish budget..... and will soon hit home.

There were even threats of race officials going on strike.

Horse-racing ireland hates betfair. The chief executive was on rte saying that they don't pay anything for their product, but that will change very soon along with the other companies who are based off-shore.