The times they are a-changin': Irish Field, Leo, Sir Robert and the goggle-box

This weekend's Irish Field marks a significant change in the real-politik of Irish racing.

Robert Hall is a sometime-contributor as a columnist to the Field in which he is likely to regale us about his love for fine wines and frisky fillies but, astoundingly, he was offered the opportunity this week by the paper's editor (old pals from Goffs) to lecture us on the dastardly and misguided decision by HRI to select ATR/SIS as the "preferred bidder" for direct-to-home rights of Irish Racing. It takes Hall all of EIGHT paragraphs to declare an interest as being part of the, so far, unsuccessful bid by Highflyer for the rights.

This same Robert Hall is the second most high-profile broadcaster on Irish Racing we have in this country courtesy of his long-standing RTE role and here we have him representing a production company that is advocating a pay-to-view subscription service in a corporate piece that has been edited to within an inch of its life: Gary O'Brien's "sterling coverage" - pun intended??? - is more than offset by us viewers "piggybacking" on a free UK service (of course its not free thanks to Sky subscriptions) "that otherwise offers little in the way of quality". So its just a friendly spat then and not sour grapes at all. (Is Ted likely to interview him this weekend and say "Hey, Robert, what's this about you wantin' punters to pay to watch Irish racing?")

I'll grant Hall one credit in that he simply says "with little likelihood of capturing a levy from offshore betting" he is agreeing with the views of one Royal Academy who's been telling you (banging on?) for years that this so-called solution to our problems will ultimately and utterly fail.

I've rarely seen such poor judgement in allowing a nakedly commercial interest masquerade as a "columnist" and not a sign of counter arguments from ATR/SIS or the other unsuccessful bidder Racing UK (more sterling coverage).

Leo genteely states that his old pals views will be "disagreed with by many" yet offers little or no counter-balancing of the commercial arguments. What is significant is that, for once, the rallying cry to the troops about getting the new betting tax regime in place is silent and maybe, just maybe, the penny is beginning to drop that the begging bowl is not the best approach and some smart new thinking is needed and expecting a guy betting with an offshore operater to pay tax on Irish racing is nonsensical.


Hall asks "how best to arrest the (problem of funding Irish racing) situation?"

Simples! tax the profits of bookmakers whose growth in this country "knows no bounds" at a far higher rate than 12.5% (call it a tax on causing misery, if you will) and divide the spoils between the exchequer, treatment for gambling and racing.

P.S. the other "scandal" in all this jostling is that every racetrack is now likely to receive close to €50,000 in rights money for opening their gates. There's guys doing very, very well for doing very, very little!