IHRB 'confident' all courses will have CCTV in the coming weeks

The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) is confident that CCTV will be in place on all tracks by the end of February, with five venues currently still without cameras in stable yards.

CCTV in yards has been mooted since 2018 after the Charles Byrnes-trained Viking Hoard was 'nobbled' with a sedative by an unidentified person at a meeting at Tramore in October that year, for which the trainer was suspended six months for in 2021.

Byrnes failed in a subsequent appeal, having been found guilty of negligence by leaving Viking Hoard unattended for some time. He has made the argument that were CCTV in place, the person responsible could have been identified.

Money was allocated to the IHRB in 2018 for the purpose of rolling out CCTV at tracks in Ireland, but the funds were used elsewhere for further integrity purposes. CCTV at stable yards has been mandatory in Britain for a number of years, but the rollout continues in Ireland.

A 2021 Oireachtas Report into anti-doping recommended that CCTV would be rolled out imminently at all 25 tracks in Ireland, at a rough cost of around €20,000 per venue.

The IHRB's head of communications Niall Cronin says the rollout should be complete in the coming weeks.

"We’re making good progress. We’ve got cameras installed in 20 of the 25 racecourses," said Cronin. "The rest should be completed hopefully this month and into next month at the latest."

It had been reported that the IHRB had hoped to have cameras installed at all tracks before making them operational, but Cronin says they’ve already been in action.

"The ones that are in place are operational," he added. "They were in operation at festivals over Christmas at both Limerick and Leopardstown."

Integrity statistics for 2021 have yet to be published and will no longer be published as a standalone. The information was normally published early in the New Year but did not arrive in 2022 for the previous 12 months.

These statistics include information on stewards’ inquiries, appeals and referrals hearings, drug and alcohol testing of riders, drug testing of horses, licences and medical statistics.

They will instead be included in the IHRB’s Annual Report, with no date given for their release.

"They’ll be going into our annual report," said Cronin. "They won’t be coming out as they previously had been. That’s why they haven’t been published yet.

"A lot of figures were changed by the Covid-19 pandemic. We will be issuing them, but it will just be coming under a different format."

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