MONTJEU.COM

An Independent View of the Bloodstock World

Month: March 2021

  • HRI Administration Blues

    This article isn’t about breeding matters but rather more mundane administrative issues. The staff in Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) are very nice but their systems are woefully inadequate for 2021. Part of the remit of HRI is to encourage racehorse ownership but their outdated processes and bureaucracy are a major turn-off for new owners in syndicates/partnerships. They also haven’t adjusted for Covid and it is no longer practical to meet your dozen other fellow syndicate members in the pub and gather all their signatures (or however they imagine it happens).

    HRI only provide non editable partnership forms that owners and syndicates are expected to print out, hand fill, sign or scan/ post to the next person (and there may be 10 or more people in a syndicate). This is not acceptable in 2021. I know some syndicate managers just sign on behalf of everyone.

    Here are some improvements that could easily be made if HRI wanted to improve life just a little for owners:


    1. Have editable pdf /typable word documents for all ownership forms on the HRI website. Better still have an online form in which details are entered

    2. Accept digital signatures – it is 2021, we have been through a pandemic but their systems haven’t adapted

    3. Allow an online check of available horse names (subject to final verification). Currently you have to ring up and speak to someone, yet there is no reason why this can’t be done online.

    4. Sort out the sequencing of registering a new owner in a partnership. As I understand it, they can’t be registered until they are linked to a horse and that horse has to be named. Why? (apart from system inadequacy)

    5. The charge for naming a horse can only be taken from one partners account- yet everything else is split in proportion. I’d love to know the justification for that…

    6. Colours can’t be registered for a partnership but they can for a syndicate. Some people don’t care about whose colours a horse runs in but others do and having a neutral option that doesn’t favour one partner would be a good idea.

    There are HRI charges to owners for everything from registering a partnership/registering colours, renewal, authority to act, registering leases etc. It is not unreasonable to expect a decent service in return………

  • Cheltenham 2021 and Sons of Galileo

    Last year, I wrote about the deeply concerning rush by National Hunt breeders to use sons of Galileo see https://www.montjeu.com/galileo-groupthink-national-hunt-breeding-and-a-new-heresy/

    Herd mentality (or mass insanity) saw around one third of NH mares go to sons of Galileo in 2020 year. Nothing in the interim has changed my view that this is a misguided approach that will do long term damage to the National Hunt breed. NH breeders should look at the Cheltenham 2021 results and start to look for alternatives.

    The full listing of runners by Galileo and his sons at Cheltenham 2021 is shown below.

    HorseSirePositionRnrsClassType
    OK CorralMahlerPU16Hcp Gr. 3Chase
    ConcertistaNathaniel210Grade 1Hurdle
    Cabot CliffsGleneagles1222Hcp.Gr. 3Hurdle
    Glen ForsaMahler1219Hcp Gr. 3Chase
    Chris’s DreamMahlerPU9Grade 1Chase
    Pont AvalSoldier of Fortune1015Grade 2Hurdle
    Bob MahlerMahlerBD21HcpChase
    Deisa AbaMahlerPU21HcpChase
    ZanahiyrNathaniel48Grade 1Hurdle
    BuildmeupbuttercupSixties Icon2425Hcp Gr3Hurdle
    TorygraphMahler816Grade 1Hurdle
    N’goloGalileo916Grade 1Hurdle

    The results are striking for two reasons:

    1. The lack of runners, sired by sons of Galileo who were actually good enough to run at Cheltenham
    2. The lack of success of his sons runners. Only Nathaniel could be described as a good NH sire (and he is still a flat sire).

    Incidentally, the solution is not to redirect every mare to a son of Monsun instead!