Hugely popular scheme offers €10,000 sales bonus to Irish-bred winners of certain races – generating over €27m in bloodstock sales so far
Ten thousand euro may not seem a lot in the modern seven-figure, eight-figure bloodstock industry, but it means a lot – as those rewarded by and benefiting from the IRE Incentive scheme will attest.
The incentive, in the form of a sales bonus of €10,000 awarded to the owners of Irish-bred winners of certain
races in Britain and Ireland, represents several things. There is the validation of the initial transaction, the shrewd purchase of a winner, congratulations all round. It is quite something, winning any race.
Then there is the possibility of taking the bonus – which comes in the shape of a sales voucher – and repeating the achievement, a stimulus to return to the sales with extra spending power, the next purchase already part-paid for. Incentive indeed.
Those with a memory for memorable quotes will remember Victor Kiam, the man behind the Remington electric shaver who “liked it so much, I bought the company”.
Bev Hendry hasn’t gone quite that far, but he spent the sales voucher he earned for winning an IRE Incentive race on another yearling and – liking the initiative so much – neatly named her Irish Incentive.
“It’s a fantastic scheme,” says Hendry, a Florida-based expat Scot, who used the bonus earned by the victory at Leicester of his filly Kylie Of Lochalsh to help purchase Irish Incentive, a chestnut daughter of first-season sire Starman who fetched €25,000 at last year’s Goffs Orby Sale Book 1, consigned by Tally-Ho Stud.
“The name is a bit of fun,” he adds. “I wouldn’t have bought the filly if it hadn’t been for the bonus. We were sitting around afterwards, me and my partner/racing manager Christine Hosier, talking about the incentive scheme, and someone said ‘that’d be a great name for a horse’. And it is a great name. Every time she runs, and hopefully when she wins, she’ll advertise the scheme.”
Collaborative effort
The scheme was launched in 2021 as a collaboration between Irish Thoroughbred Marketing (ITM), Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association (ITBA), with the funding provided by HRI, whose underlying intention for the scheme was ‘to stimulate and fortify Irish Thoroughbred breeding, racing and sales’. The genius of the scheme lies in its accessibility and its simplicity.
To qualify, horses need simply to be Irish-bred – to 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 catalogue page.
In the four completed years of the scheme (2021-24), according to statistics supplied by ITM’s Kristina Austin, there have been 839 incentive races – with a near-even split between Britain and Ireland – and 505 winners of those races eligible for the bonus, representing a combined payout of more than €5 million. Winning owners receive a €10,000 sales voucher to spend on Irish-breds at any Irish auction, provided it is used by the end of the following year.
Broad spectrum of opportunity
In 2025 there will again be more than 200 incentive races across a broad spectrum of opportunity, with races including novice, median auction and fillies’ Listed contests on the Flat to bumpers and novice hurdles over jumps. Even horses right at the bottom of the pyramid, those in selling grade, can reap rewards for their connections.
“We won an IRE Incentive race at York last June with Inconspicuous [Inns Of Court-Bishop’s Lake], a seller over six furlongs,” says North Yorkshire trainer Ollie Pears (right).
“That was a great day – we had the prize-money [£12,000] and the €10,000 incentive voucher on top, and then we let him go at the post-race auction for £20,000. For a horse who cost €15,000 [2023 Tattersalls Ireland September sale] it was a tremendous return on investment.
“The owner gets two lots of yearling sales to spend the voucher, as it doesn’t expire until the end of this year. I generally buy at the lower end anyway so we’ll go back to the sales in Ireland and it’ll probably cover the cost of another horse, maybe more than cover it.
“The Irish Thoroughbred Marketing team do all they can to help buyers, they really look after you, do a fantastic job, and it’s a great scheme to get involved in.”
Over the four full years of the initiative more than €27m in bloodstock sales has been generated through use of the bonus, a multiplier effect of 6.5 from the €4.16m in bonuses already redeemed, a large amount of money largely generated by those operating away from the headline-grabbing sales-topping end of the marketplace.
That top end generally looks after itself, immune to the slings and arrows of economic imperatives, but the middle-market and the lower end of the scale can feel the pinch with increasing sharpness, so the IRE Incentive scheme is a blessing for those who need a little more assistance than others, whether vendors or purchasers.
A great help to owners
“It’s a great help to owners, everything like this is a help,” says Declan Carroll (right), who trains just down the road from Pears and sent out the Irish-bred Fuji Mountain [Invincible Spirit-Angelic Light, a 62,000gns purchase at Tattersalls October Book 2 in 2023] to win an incentive race at Chester last July.
“It’s great for everyone, to be fair. There was Fuji Mountain last year and we’ve won a few in previous years too, a couple at York I remember well. It gives owners an opportunity to reinvest, which is very important.
“I was looking at the list of incentive races the other day and there’s a few coming up. I haven’t run any two-year-olds yet – it’s been too firm to get them on the grass – but when I do I’ll be targeting these races for my Irish-breds.”
That sense of optimism – felt by anyone with an unraced two-year-old in spring, that delicious time when all geese may yet be swans and anything is possible – is shared by Hendry, who fulfilled a lifetime dream when Kylie Of Lochalsh ran at Royal Ascot last year and is living the dream again with Irish Incentive, both the horse and the scheme.
“Irish Incentive is with Gay Kelleway, as was ‘Kylie’, and with a bit of luck she might be ready to make her debut next month – I’m really excited,” he says.
“I’ve had a lot of runners in the US but this is something different, a big thrill. The IRE Incentive bonuses keep the money going round and round within racing, gives everyone a lift, the owner, the trainer, the vendor.
“I’m a big fan of it,” he says. “It’s the perfect thing for an owner buying up to the mid-market. You might call it a big incentive for someone like me. And it works really well.”
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