Over €2.4m awarded and €10m in sales generated as popular scheme gathers momentum, as Nancy Sexton reports
Ireland: An owner arrives at an Irish sale on the hunt for a ‘free horse’. It sounds almost too good to be true. And under normal circumstances it would be the stuff of fantasy – except this owner has had their colours carried to victory in an IRE Incentive race and therefore has a €10,000 sales bonus to spend. Understandably, the IRE Incentive scheme has caught the imagination.
Launched in 2021 in a collaborative effort between Irish Thoroughbred Marketing (ITM), Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association (ITBA), the HRI-funded scheme awards a sales bonus of €10,000 to the owners of Irish-bred winners of selected races.
One of the beauties of the incentive is its simplicity. Qualified horses have to be nothing more than Irish-bred – in other words, carry the IRE suffix – and Foal Levy compliant. They are easily identifiable at the sales by a green ‘IRE incentive’ hip sticker and are also noted as ‘IRE Qualified' on the sales catalogue page.
As for the selected races, there will be over 200 scheduled on the calendar this year in Britain and Ireland, ranging from novice, median auction and fillies’ Listed races on the Flat to bumpers and novice hurdles over jumps.
In return, winning owners receive a €10,000 sales voucher to spend on Irish-breds at an Irish auction of their choice, provided it is used by the end of the following year.
In the words of HRI, the scheme was designed to “stimulate and fortify Irish thoroughbred breeding, racing and sales”, and indeed, the early figures are impressive. So far, €2.49 million has been awarded to 249 winners and 201 individual winning owners. In turn, that has generated an immense return of over €10m at the sales. And the momentum keeps building.
“We’ve had two full seasons of it now and it’s working very well,” says ITM CEO Charles O’Neill. “We are seeing trainers targeting qualifying races and the syndicates are big believers, because after all it gets the money back in and helps to keep the wheels turning.
“It’s also been great to see how the British trainers have taken to it. They’re making an effort to come over to Ireland and spend their vouchers, and that gets money back to Irish breeders. It’s helped revitalise the UK market.”
One syndicate quick on the board was Syndicates Racing, a partnership that offers affordable access into racehorse ownership under both codes. The brainchild of Jack Cantillon, the Syndicates Racing team has come to work the sale grounds with an eye on qualified horses.
“In its first year, we were awarded a €10,000 voucher with Mise Le Meas when she won at Gowran Park,” recalls Cantillon. “We immediately reinvested that €10,000 into buying the Irish-bred Freedom Falls from the Irish National Stud at that year’s Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale.
“It’s like the loyalty scheme at your local coffee shop – keep buying the same quality each week and you’ll keep getting rewarded. The multiplier effect in generating a virtuous circle of investment is exactly what our industry needs.
“I’m constantly looking at qualifying races when race planning. We’re desperate to win again this year with our two-year-olds – I was broken-hearted not to have one to spend last year.”
As regular yearling buyer Joe Foley outlines: “It was a lovely feeling knowing we were going to a sale with four of those vouchers in our back pocket to spend – it’s a €40,000 yearling effectively.”
Foley was speaking in his role as racing manager to Steve Parkin’s Clipper Logistics, the winners of four vouchers last season. “We’d been targeting those races with the vouchers in mind,” says Foley. “And so we were absolutely delighted to win four of them. Anything which rewards owners can only be encouraged.”
There’s no doubt that the scheme is becoming increasingly important in the mindset of various buyers, thereby achieving what it was launched to do. Take the example of Anthony Bromley. A busy agent under both codes, particularly National Hunt, Bromley came across a likeable horse an Irish store sale last year – only to find that he had not been qualified.
“One store I liked did not have the qualification on him,” he says. “I explained to the vendor that it was essentially a deal-breaker and he got the store qualified overnight. Said store was in the scheme by the time he went through the ring!”
Two of the prime beneficiaries among Bromley’s clients have been Simon Munir and Isaac Souede. Only last month, their two-tone green colours were carried to victory in a qualifying race by Blizzard Of Oz.
“My ‘double green’ clients have been lucky enough to win a few bonuses over the last two years,” says Bromley. “Actually we made it part of our buying strategy at last year’s store sales to target more Irish-breds with the incentive attached.
“They enjoyed using their vouchers at last year’s Goffs Land Rover Sale and will be hoping to win some Flat ones this year with some of their qualified Irish-breds who are with Joseph O’Brien.”
Indeed, O’Brien is another whose owners are consistently faring well out of the scheme. The recipient of a number of vouchers over the past two years, his team have been busy putting them to good use at the sales.
“It’s great when you go to the sales knowing that you have that extra money to work with, especially when it’s going back into the bloodstock system,” he says. “Anything that encourages owners to stay in and reinvest has to be good for the sport. It’s become an incentive for owners to do that and we’re looking forward to targeting those races again this year.”
The good news for those hunting for races is that ITM plans to keep expanding the calendar of races. “Right now, we do over 200 races a year,” says O’Neill.
“We build up the races as the season progresses, so by mid-season we could have ten races a week. And now we’re receiving more requests from racecourses to put these races on as they can see the interest in them.
“The ultimate goal in the next three years is not to just have it across Ireland and Britain, or even across Europe, but the rest of the world. We currently have €1.2m per year in the pot and we hope to get that up to €3m.”
He adds: “One of the beauties of it is that trainers who win a voucher are likely to have another horse out of it the following year. This is beneficial for everyone across the industry and it’s great for ITM to be a part of it.”
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