March is the time when Irish racing fans go misty eyed on the enduring appeal of the Cheltenham Festival.
The theatre in which Arkle laid his claim to the greatest of them all has a magnetic attraction for the best of our horses and the most intrepid of our racing fans.
From Tuesday to Friday it will be the only thing that matters for some, whether at the course or watching from home.
In 1989 there was not a single Irish winner but with the rise of the Celtic tiger and the inherent strength of the Irish racing and breeding industry that number began to rise again. In 2021 Irish trained horses brough home 24 of the 29 races.
In the three years since the number has settled at 18 but still a dominant position playing away from home.
This year the draw is even brighter with Galopin Des Champs, trained by Willie Mullins in County Carlow heading to the Gold Cup bidding for a third consecutive win in the greatest jumping prize of them all. The last Irish trained horse to do it was Arkle himself in 1966. This is history in the making.
An estimated 60,000 might travel for at least one day of the Festival and when the English Jockey Club did an economic assessment a decade ago they landed on a figure of a €21 million spend on getting there and having a ball.
They will go to see the horses but also the humans behind them. Jockeys Paul Townend and especially Rachael Blackmore have crossed from the racing pages to the front page and are sporting superstars in every sense.
The fun of the Festival, and the chance of cheering a winner is backed up by an ever stronger industry back at home.
Year-on-year increases in the key metrics of attendances, commercial sponsorship and on-course betting point to another robust 12 months for the horse racing and breeding industry in Ireland.
Full year statistics for 2024, released last month by Horse Racing Ireland, also show marginal increases in the areas of prize money, racehorse ownership, the owner retention rate and the numbers of horses in training.
Total sponsorship in the sport hit €9.7 million in 2024, with €6.8 million coming from commercial partners and €2.9 coming from industry sponsorship through the European Breeders Fund.
The commercial sponsorship income climbed 7.9 percent from €6.2 million in 2023. This includes sponsorship from Dubai Duty Free and the Bahrain Turf Club who sponsor two of the most highly prized races in Europe run at the Curragh and Leopardstown.
It also includes Savills and Paddy Power at the Leopardstown Christmas and Dublin Racing Festivals, Boylesports at the Irish Grand National and a myriad of other backers keen to be involved at the Galway, Punchestown, Listowel and Other Festivals across the year.
1.242 million people crossed the threshold to go racing here in 2024, a small increase on the previous year.
Prize money in 2024 was up 2.6% to €69.9m and the figure for 2025 will rise by a further €1m.
Irish horses continued to perform well when campaigned overseas and the prize money won by Irish-trained horses in Britain rose by over 16% to Stg£19.4m with a total of €9.2m won by our horses in the rest of the world.
Total on-course betting, including Tote, rose to €84.1m, an increase of 4.5%. Bookmaker betting on-course rose by 5.6% to €73.7m.
€197.8 million was spent buying horses at sales houses such as Goffs and Tattersalls, attracting buyers from around the world.
The total number of active owners, including those who dream of Cheltenham, billionaires, bricklayers and dreamers has risen by 0.9% to 4,741, with the number of syndicates up by 6.7% and new owners up 4.1%.
There is also a marginal rise in the total number of horses-in-training which grew 0.4% to 10,488.
There is significant state investment in the Horse Racing Industry, dating back to the creation of a fund by Charlie McCreevy, based around income from betting duties but not directly linked to that.
In the most recent budget, the figure assigned to Horse Racing was €79.8 million, a figure which other sports can sometimes resent, but which supports 10,000 jobs.
A Deloitte report in 2023 demonstrated a 35-fold return to the economy on the annual Government investment.
The target in the latest strategic plan for the industry is is to grow this return year-on-year and by the end of 2028 to have increased the industry’s economic reach to €3 billion from the current €2.46 billion.
This is serious business as well as serious sport. While the economics will give way to roars of passion and support for Galopin Des Champs on Gold Cup Day at Cheltenham, the foundations are being continually lain for his successors to have an equal chance at dominating the sport in a way that most countries could only dream of.
SPORT FOR BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
The roar from the stands when the tapes go up for the first race of the Festival is one of the most enduring and anticipatory swells of feeling in sport. Tuesday’s Four Championship Races will all have very short price favourites, three of them trained in Ireland. If Kopek Des Bordes, Majborough and Lossiemouth all win in races one, two and four, the punters will be on top and the bookies on the ropes. But it’s a long week to stay there…
WHAT’S UP NEXT?
Four days of hope and expectation.
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