Horse Racing Ireland backs Aer Lingus American Football game

State body Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) is joining forces with Aer Lingus to promote this year’s American Football College Classic in a bid to promote thoroughbred sales to the US.

The airline is sponsoring a college football clash between Notre Dame University and Navy on August 26th at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

The game is part of an annual series designed to get more US tourists to touch down in the Republic.

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HRI said it will kick off a three-year partnership promoting the Aer Lingus-backed games with a stars-and-stripes-themed evening race meeting at Leopardstown racecourse in south Dublin.

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The horse racing body says it hopes to cash in on the strong ties between the two countries’ bloodstock industries and promote the sale of Irish thoroughbreds in the US.

Last year US buyers paid almost €19 million for Irish racehorses, €2.1 million more than in 2021 and continuing a trend that has been growing strongly for several years.

The 2022 total was more than twice the €8.5 million that US owners bid for Irish racehorses in 2018.

The US is the world’s biggest bloodstock market with public sales of thoroughbreds there worth more than €1.2 billion last year.

Ireland ranked second to this with its public bloodstock auctions generating €538 million in 2022 and private sales estimated at €120 million.

Growing interest

HRI subsidiary Irish Thoroughbred Marketing has focused on developing the US market in recent years, increasing interest from buyers there.

Chief executive of HRI Racecourses Paul Dermody said the “international reputation of Irish horse-breeding is driving significant interest from US buyers”.

He noted that a growing number of top-level winners in the US were Irish bred, while investors there had backed Irish trainer Joseph O’Brien to establish a satellite yard at Saratoga racecourse in New York.

Brendan Meehan, commercial director of Aer Lingus College Football Classic, noted that horse racing played an important role in Irish-US relations.