A decline in Irish racing's key metrics may be understandable - but the jumps figures are alarming
![Rebel Fitz and Davy Russell win the Galway Hurdle for Michael Winters](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fs3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com%2Fprod-media-racingpost%2Fprod%2Fimages%2F169_1008%2Fd7cc17d641d9-50547.jpg&w=3840&q=75)
Horse Racing Ireland published its six-month performance statistics on Friday and they made for pretty grim reading.
Everything from attendances, horses in training, field sizes, the number of runners, owners, on-course betting and sales returns were all down on the same period in 2023. This despite the fact that prize-money was up marginally (1.5 per cent) to €31 million.
It's not exactly a rosy vista and what was particularly disconcerting was the dramatic discrepancy between some of the Flat and National Hunt metrics, the latter contracting far more sharply.
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Published on inRichard Forristal
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