Brian Kavanagh HRI

The procedure was all wrong for his appointment as you've mentioned above. Industry people like him because he puts up prize money at every opportunity and there are loads of Micky Mouse pattern races. I think I read it was him who negotiated a very good deal for the media rights to pictures as well.

The line about him being a strong negotiator seems to have cropped up a lot. I think the above is a bit short-termist, though.

It's hard to measure exactly, but I think the position of the sport has slipped hugely in the public's conscious in the last 20 years. Its not all his fault, new sports fans have been getting stupider but he has presided over the biggest slip. Rather than look at making the racing more appetising, the thing to do seems to have been to tack on a new Group 1 mares novice year on year. As I say the likes of WPM & Coolmore love this outlook, but then you stand where you sit!

Coveney discovered a board jammed to the rafters representing only the top table and attempted to bring some influence to affairs but failed. After a brief period of enthusiasm, the industry slipped off his radar entirely.

There is no expertise - or no expertise that wants to question the status quo - in present Dail representatives so Keeling & HRI get a relatively easy time over this debacle although that's now the wrong word because bar a minor wrist tap there were no consequences to the mishandling of Kavanagh's appointment.

Kavanagh apparently has a completely open-ended Contract so I'm not sure how you shift him even if you wanted to without the taxpayer paying for his early retirement. Current Government guidelines compared to Kavanagh's contract has never been adequately explained to the public. (The failure to have the 2015 HRI accounts available on their corporate website tells me enough about their unwillingness to be transparent-this is an annual issue).

I know many people associated with the game and it is not uncommon for them to have zero interest in racing (except via the breeding shed) because they have no affinity to an enjoyable day out, a bet and a drink. This is racing's audience and unless you have that in your DNA you don't really understand your target audience. That's what the "morketing" people don't get. Instead they pander to music, fashion and celebs rather than making the day about the interested racegoer.

Kavanagh was very good at negotiating his own contract.Alan Sweetman has a good acticle on it in todays racingpost.

Sweetman referenced an article written by Ruby in a "national newspaper" calling for Keeling's head; anyone have a link by any chance?

Today's Examiner.
Pat Keane


It’s the story that runs and runs, and continues to project an unfavourable image of Irish racing.


The reappointment of Brian Kavanagh for an unprecedented third term as chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland has been controversial and, one imagines, somewhat disconcerting for the main protagonists.

The facts are pretty simple. HRI is a semi-state body and government guidelines recommend that the Chief Executive of such organisations should serve just one term in office.

Kavanagh did a seven-year term, then another seven years and now, extraordinarily, has been afforded a further five years.

On top of all of that it has emerged that he may qualify for what we are now discovering is a CID, a contract of indefinite duration.

It seems it may have kicked in during the early stages of his second term. What it means, apparently, is that even if the minister for agriculture, Michael Creed, wanted to remove Kavanagh he couldn’t.

All of this emerged when HRI chairman, Joe Keeling, went on a solo run in an effort to give Kavanagh a third, and lucrative, term.

He acted without the approval of the HRI board and misled two government ministers. He says that wasn’t his intention and we will take him at his word.

As a result, Keeling found himself recently, with three other HRI Board members, before an agriculture committee hearing in the Oireachtas. It made for very uncomfortable viewing. Keeling and his entourage must have felt a bit like the Christians in the Coliseum.

They were representing a state-owned body that next year will be in receipt of €64m of taxpayers’ money. Such funding demands total transparency and HRI has to be seen to operate in a manner that is utterly professional, and beyond reproach.

Keeling and his team were basically defenceless. Mind you it is only fair to point out that Keeling and the current HRI board inherited the Kavanagh CID situation.

The point is, though, that in whatever position Keeling found himself, he had to be seen to be giving real leadership. Looking at the bare facts, going on a solo run has to be regarded as the wrong thing to do and sent out just about every negative message possible. In my view it renders his continuing as chairman of HRI as untenable.

Kavanagh’s salary is over €200,000 a year, more than the Taoiseach, and to turn seven years into a possible 19 takes some doing.

I have never met Keeling in my life, but know a little about Kavanagh. For instance, when I wrote something critical about HRI, or Kavanagh, or both, at one time (I don’t recall the exact details) he rang me. He put his point of view across and we went toe-to-toe for a little while. There were no back doors with him and, as a result, he went way up in my estimation.

I’ve given HRI and Kavanagh plenty of it over the years, but not once did I detect any change of attitude by him towards me. Indeed, on any occasion I ever met Kavanagh, he was never less than courteous. What I am really trying to say is that, in the modest number of times our paths crossed, I found Brian Kavanagh to be an honourable man.

Ruby Walsh, bravely, stuck his head above the parapet in his column in this paper a week ago, calling on Keeling and Kavanagh to go. He was right, because it is only when they go that this saga can end.

Fair play to Keane ,he could easily have had a swipe at Kavanagh and none of us would have been the wiser, yet he paints a picture of a man of honour, in these days of ego tripping journos he has grown in my estimation . I think his highlighting of this appointment has once again shown that the  HRI think they are above the law that us mere mortals have to adhere too .