Clear-cut case for pointing to be at front of funding queue after suffering most

Horse Racing Ireland's funding was confirmed at a glass-half-empty, glass-half-full amount of €70.4 million in this week’s budget, a decrease on this year’s Covid budget but up on 2020.

That confirmation now kickstarts the lobbying from all sides of the industry and point-to-point racing has every reason to be prominent in the queue.

The pointing sector typically receives somewhere around €2m-€2.2m of the annual budget, which in 2017 broke down between hunt clubs (€678,000), prize-money (€688,000) and Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board integrity costs (€714,000).