Irish Racing in the Dark Ages

it begger's belief alright  hemingway .

And yet large bonuses are paid to employees of HRI...

Let's be clear abvout this. Horse Racing in Ireland is borderline, if not actually, insolvent. It cannot pay its own way and relies on the state for funding. This funding in turn supplements the industry so that c25000 people may be employed in it. I don't understand it.

While I am always gung ho for racing to proceed , sometimes we just have to accept that circumstances have contrived to make racing virtually impossible . On a huge track like Leopardstown , hosting thousands upon thousands of racegoers , the track is only one consideration .

The pressure on courses to provide entertainment is huge , often coming from very vested interests .  At the end of the day , horse ( and human) welfare is the bottom line , and even covering areas of courses may not yield a "safe" conveyance for horse or human .

In the course of my working life I had to travel a fair bit within these isles .  Where possible I avoided Decmber and January like the plague re travel .  And that was years ago , weather has taken a big turn for the worse in last 10 years at least . Cheers .

Accept that Kelly but surely they simply must act to give the course the best possible chance? By not covering it, they do not do that. I also think that they could make the surrounding areas safe enough to proceed. End of the day, if 75000 people can go to Old Trafford in the snow, I am confident Leop could get 20000 in without too many problems. Maybe that is fanciful but I dont think so. In any case, think thye need to look at this now because its going to become a very very big issue for racing.

Slight difference betwee Old Trafford and Foxrock , Hemingway . Plus the resources available in the bonkers world of professional soccer in England vs racing anywhere raise a few questions .  Rooneys weekly salary is probably greater than the total budget for a days racing anywhere , and there are 30 others plus to get paid after him , so its worth spending a few quid to get 60k plus people through the turnstiles at £40 each approx .

And those 60k are stationary once inside . Running a racecourse and dealing with all the potential vagaries involved is sometimes complicated , particularly in current weather conditions .  My sympathy is with those at the heart of the decisions , we punters have to just take whats on offer ( and its normally very good in Leopardstown's case ) .  Covering might help , but it might also be a waste of time and effort . Lets hope the weather relents for the sake of all .

I am only 2 miles from Leopardstown and there is at least a foot of snow in the garden. IMO if there were sheets it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference.

i'm afraid we must just accept it. you cannot beat the weather that we have had recently, no matter what was done.

Agree with the OP.
Been thinking about this myself.

Most are missing Hemingway's point imo. HRI have squandered money internaly and externally for years. Monies spent on development of Mallow were indeed wisely invested. The ROI is astounding, even Warren Buffet would be impressed. I use an accoutancy term as I know those in HRI are familiar with such gibberish. Frankly if more money had been devoted to track maintenance and up to date equipment for dealing with adverse weather it would give racing a better cahance of taking place. I'm not saying it would have made Leop raceable next week but it would have been a more PRUDENT MEASURE. Typical accountancy speak indeed.

The frost covers deployed at Fontwell was to try and save a fairly modest days racing; it is surprising then that a similar effort is not made to try and save such an important fixture as Leopardstown.

There's never an easy solution to unnatural weather playing havoc with sporting and particularly racing fixtures.Kempton Park have taken every possible precaution and still it's big odds on that their showpiece meeting is going to fall by the wayside.Aside from all that HRI made absolutely no effort to take any measures to make sure Leopardstown went ahead.The bottom line is that Kempton did everything possible while Tom Burke and his merry men just sat back and hoped for the best.This is the same Tom Burke who was plucked from the betting division of the old HRI and made racecourse manager at Leopardstown.You would have to wonder what qualifications or attributes the powers that be thought he had for such a job.HRI unfortunately may not have any money for the purchase of covers for racetracks,they may not be in a position to make good the people that were owed from the Listowel debacle, I think that was in the region of 30k.Thank god they could find the resources to give their chief executive a handy 40k bonus last year,because only for him the Irish racing scene would be in a much more perilous state.I know of somebody who says that he goes racing in Ireland 200 days a year for the last 20 years,that's 4000 meetings .In that period of time he swears he's seen Kavanagh twice.I can't say whether he attends regularly or not but it sounds like he doesn't,and with the size of his Darby Kelly ,he'd be pretty easy to spot .

Holy god cover 1.6 miles of track with covers ffs, correct me if i am wrong but covers are used to prevent frost from getting into the ground not snow falling from the sky !!!

Well Newbury had no problem covering their track and that's a wider expanse than Leopardstown.Newbury has a meeting for next Wednesday and it's a certainty to be on,the same day leopardstown are due to race and it's likely to be off,that's the difference.London has been equally effected by snow and frost as Dublin but as we can see there is a huge difference in how close their respective tracks are to holding a meeting.In all propability it boils down to finance,the HRI simply don't have the funds to pay for the extra manpower that would be involved in laying and lifting covers.Perish the thought that this unnecessary expense may impinge on their most deserved bonuses for the top brass.

[;)]Time for J.P and co to dip their hands in their pockets. After all, they have robbed the punters for years, give something back etc etc

Difference is different weather robo, the south of England has a different climate than Ireland. Trust me i knows this stuff.

Looks like maybe Leopardstown and co got it right .  Despite the cross channel efforts to ensure racing , effort fruitless .  Sometimes you just have to accept what is handed to you .

That is not to say you become complacent , but the weather recently has been freakish relative to expectations normal here , and my sympathy is with those trying to keep a show on the road .

It has been 4 degrees all day in my neck of the woods which is about 2 miles away.

There must be still 6 inches of snow about. We need the rain for Tuesday to be a runner imo.

I concur soapp.Tuesday has to be in big danger,thaw is slow so far.