Turf Club considers proposals on future

The Turf Club, which currently controls most aspects of horseracing in the Republic, meets on Thursday to consider Government…

The Turf Club, which currently controls most aspects of horseracing in the Republic, meets on Thursday to consider Government proposals which would effectively wipe out the Turf Club's function in racing.

Reports suggest that the Turf Club will reject the Government's proposals, although not perhaps at Thursday's meeting. If it does so, this could jeopardise the future funding of horseracing - as well as that of greyhound racing - which the Ministers for Finance and Agriculture propose to fund permanently from the 5 per cent tax on off-course betting.

In the coming year, that funding is estimated at between £32 and £36 million, compared with the present £18 million Government subvention to the entire horse industry.

This amount, however, is conditional on all elements in horseracing agreeing on a unitary body to run the industry. It is understood that if no agreement can be reached between the Turf Club and the Association of Irish Racecourses (AIR) on the one hand and the Irish Horseracing Authority on the other, a legal challenge to the Government's proposals is being considered.

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The Government's announcement a week ago of a new semi-State body, Horse Racing Ireland, to control racing, took the Turf Club completely by surprise. Instead of the structure the Turf Club had been negotiating with the Government's facilitators for several weeks, the Government announced a structure which appears to be an expanded version of the current Irish Horseracing Authority.

It takes away the Turf Club's main Registry Office functions - entries, on-course operations, handicapping and forensic - and the bulk of its staff of 63, as well as the AIR's media rights on the racecourses. It leaves integrity services - discipline, appeals and licencing - with the Club. It gives the Turf Club just three representatives and the AIR one representative on the 11-member board of Horse Racing Ireland.

The Turf Club is a 210-yearold private club, based at the Curragh, which makes and enforces the rules of racing, regulates the sport and provides integrity services such as stewards and referees, as well as doping controls and licensing racecourses.