The success of Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins is impacting the sport© Photo Healy Racing
Reports that Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Henry De Bromhead and Gavin Cromwell are threatening a legal challenge to Horse Racing Ireland’s (HRI) new series of 60 National Hunt races that specifically precludes these four trainers from competing is somewhat unexpected.
This new series of races, which is only open to trainers that have trained less than 50 winners in each of the previous two seasons, was broadly welcomed across the sport when announced last month. Its sole objective is to give more opportunities to the vast majority of trainers that are struggling to compete with the dominance of the big four stables.
While I would be critical of the approach HRI has taken here - too simplistic a response to a complex problem - and the fact that the governing body let the situation get to this point before taking any action, I do think something definitely needs to be done.
There is also an element of irony here as HRI has undoubtedly contributed to the success of the four big yards by lauding them for their victories both at home and abroad. HRI leverages that success to promote Ireland as a global leader in horse racing and breeding, which in turn ensures continued Government support that benefits all.
These four trainers are literally threatening to bite the hand that feeds them
There is no question that National Hunt racing in Ireland has become completely lopsided, and to an extent uncompetitive, with virtually all the best horses concentrated in just four yards. But when you look at those big four trainers in isolation there is also a major gulf in terms of winners, prize money earned and quality of horses amongst them.
Willie Mullins is streets ahead of everyone in terms of the quality of his horses at his disposal and prize money won in recent seasons. Gordon Elliott has managed to stay relatively competitive with Mullins in terms of races won, but has failed to get within €2 million of his rival’s prize money tally in any of the last four seasons.
Last season in Ireland Willie Mullins trained a record-breaking 257 winners and Gordon Elliott also managed to hit a double-century with a total of 207.
Putting those numbers into some sort of perspective, this is the equivalent of the pair of them winning every single national hunt race run in Ireland this year from New Year’s Day all the way up to and including the third race on the Friday of the Punchestown Festival on 3rd May. That is how dominant they have become.
While there can be no denying the utter dominance of Mullins and Elliott, it is difficult to justify putting either Henry De Bromhead or Gavin Cromwell into the same bracket. De Bromhead has never managed to train 100 winners in a season, let alone 200, while Cromwell has only finished marginally above the new cutoff of 50 winners in 3 of his last 4 seasons and his best ever tally is a mere 72 winners, achieved last season.
If HRI’s new series of races had a cutoff of 100 winners in either of the last two seasons, rather than 50 winners, it would at least be a more targeted approach to the specific problem.
Overall I’d be surprised if any of the four trainers go ahead with their threat of legal action as it is difficult to see how they could win the case. Even if they were successful it would probably cost them more money in legal bills than is necessarily at stake in the first place.
HRI officially sets the fixture list, race programme and prize money levels and there is already plenty of precedent for what they have come up with for this new series. A similar series of 17 races already exists for trainers with a defined level of success.
Like almost all sports, National Hunt racing is already made up of numerous categories and sub-divisions that positively discriminate in favour of certain competitors, both people and animals. Mares only races, amateur riders races, conditional jockeys races, lady rider races, even veteran races. And this is before you get into the area of handicap bands for all manor of races to segregate horses based on ability.
This new series of 60 races only accounts for 4% of the total number of national hunt races run in a season and an even smaller percentage of the total prize money on offer, so it shouldn’t make too much difference to the bottom lines of any of the four trainers concerned, but might just provide a lifeline to some of the rest, many of whom must be only hanging on by a thread at this stage.
