By John Considine
At the recent Sport Economics Workshop held in University College Cork, David Forrest presented a paper titled “Spectator Demand for the Sport of Kings”. Afterwards, in the company of David and Rob Simmons, I asked about the seemly small figures that David had presented for the average number of race meetings per track and the average number of times horses raced. A comprehensive explanation followed. It is always a privilege to hear David Forrest and Rob Simmons explain some of the economics surrounding horse racing.
Prompted by the discussion I decided to examine the Irish horse racing schedule for 2019. What follows are some of the numbers on this schedule.
There are 80 days on which racing is not scheduled to take place. On the remaining 285 days, there are 211 days on which only one race meeting will take place, 73 days on which two race meetings take place, and one day on which three race meetings are scheduled to take place (December 26th).
In terms of consecutive days racing at a particular venue then Galway and Listowel are unusual in that each venue has a seven days of consecutive racing. Killarney and Punchestown have 5-day events. However, the majority are stand alone single days racing.
Racing is scheduled to take place at 25 different venues. The distribution of the schedule across these venues is listed in below. The list is presented in descending order by number of race days. The all-weather track in Dundalk tops the list.
Prompted by the discussion I decided to examine the Irish horse racing schedule for 2019. What follows are some of the numbers on this schedule.
There are 80 days on which racing is not scheduled to take place. On the remaining 285 days, there are 211 days on which only one race meeting will take place, 73 days on which two race meetings take place, and one day on which three race meetings are scheduled to take place (December 26th).
In terms of consecutive days racing at a particular venue then Galway and Listowel are unusual in that each venue has a seven days of consecutive racing. Killarney and Punchestown have 5-day events. However, the majority are stand alone single days racing.
Racing is scheduled to take place at 25 different venues. The distribution of the schedule across these venues is listed in below. The list is presented in descending order by number of race days. The all-weather track in Dundalk tops the list.
When one hears the term “all-weather” then one thinks about the underfoot conditions. However, it is the presence of artificial light that is as important in explaining Dundalk’s number of events. There are 147 “evening” meetings. One hundred and fourteen (114) of these are held in tracks other than Dundalk during the second and third quarters of the year. However, for the first three months of the year, and the last three months of the year, the only evening fixtures are held in Dundalk.
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