Horse Racing Ireland defends paying Doireann Garrihy €27,000 to promote the sport

Horse Racing Ireland has stood over its use of social media influencers to promote the sport and indicated it will continue to use them in future.

The semistate governing body said on Friday its use of the RTÉ presenter Doireann Garrihy, who was paid over €27,000 by HRI last year, provided “real value for money for the promotion of Irish racing”.

Garrihy was paid €13,000 to promote last year’s Cheltenham Festival on different social media platforms and €7,000 to boost awareness of the 2022 Dublin Racing Festival. She also promoted the Galway festival.

The sums given to Garrihy have been highlighted in the broader context of the financial controversy that has engulfed RTÉ but it has also put HRI’s use of influencers as a marketing tool under a spotlight.

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A HRI spokesman said on Friday the promotion of Irish racing takes many forms and channels, depending on the audience demographic it is targeting.

[ Brian O'Connor: Racing is publicly funded so why is this €2.5bn industry regulated by a private body? ]

“In 2022, HRI engaged Doireann Garrihy to showcase Irish racing to her many hundreds of thousands of social media followers.

“Our partnership with Doireann saw her go behind the scenes at Dublin Racing Festival with her posts in advance of that festival, delivering click-through ticket sales that more than covered the cost of engaging her.

“It revealed a new audience for Irish racing and the decision was taken to again link up with Doireann in advance of the Cheltenham Festival in 2022.

“Cheltenham’s popularity makes it the greatest customer acquisition opportunity of the year for companies operating in the horse racing space, and delivering engaging content is key to connecting with audiences,” a spokesman said.

“This content is not just a ‘nice to have’. Customer acquisition allows HRI to build its digital media following across TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to promote and sell tickets to Irish festivals and race meetings.

“HRI’s following across all of these channels grew exponentially on the back of this content and provided real value for money for the promotion of Irish racing,” he added.

Other social media figures paid by HRI last year include Pamela Uba and Dev Skeham, who received between €390 and €700.

Separately, the Labour Party TD Aodhan O’Riordan has questioned the practise of “influencer teachers” using material from HRI’s Road To Racing Primary School Programme in the classroom.

He has described schoolchildren as “pawns” in such a scenario and demanded the practise be stopped. The Department of Education has said such matters are for individual boards of management to deal with.

A HRI spokesman commented: “Educational influencers, sourced by an agency, were used to create posts and videos to assist teachers in using those materials. Horse Racing Ireland spent €2,400 plus VAT on influencer activity to promote the Road To Racing series, including €200 for one week [of] podcast sponsorship.”

He added: “HRI Juniors is a Horse Racing Ireland initiative that offers programmes and tools where children can learn more about racehorses in a child-centred way.

“This particular campaign centred around the Road To Racing Series, a four-part video series which also provides fun worksheets for junior and senior students where they learn about horse care and welfare, and the daily routines of horses and horse riding.

“The programme was free for teachers to access and use as they see fit.”