Irish racecourses chief wants 'people back racing as soon as we can'

Paddy Walsh, chief executive of the Association of Irish Racecourses, is concerned by the snail's pace of crowd increases and admits he had expected more movement in recent weeks.

Crowds are capped at 500 per race meeting under the government's current restrictions and Walsh feels the steps taken to get double that number into Galway last week have stalled.

Walsh told the Racing Post: "We want to get people back racing as soon as we can. Getting 1,000 into Galway every day last week was at least a step in the right direction, but I thought we might have seen more movement recently and it does seem to be slow at the moment.