THE year 2020 was a mentally trying year for the majority in Irish racing. Racing was on, off and on again. Sales were on and off, in one place and then another. People could travel abroad but then they couldn’t really, then they could go to certain countries and then they couldn’t again.

It was all a bit of a mess and the Irish racing industry was hit, that’s for sure. But Irish Thoroughbred Marketing (ITM) chief executive Charles O’Neill is adamant that brighter days are ahead, this year and beyond, and that there will be big positives to take from how the industry reacted to Covid.

The Kildare native had to deal with his own problems of a physical kind in 2020, when he underwent two back operations after twice waking up in serious pain. But he’s well on the mend now, and is optimistic his role, which involves a significant amount of travelling abroad, can return to some sort of normal this year.

O’Neill was six years in the job last September. Early in his tenure, he told Daragh Ó Conchúir in this space about how a family tragedy changed his perspective on life which prompted him to find a job he was really passionate about.

He lost his brother and his father to cancer within five weeks and that cruellest of blows taught him life was too short. He saw this role advertised, worked his socks off prior to the interview and secured a dream job.

Since taking up the role, he has immersed himself in the industry, flying around the racing world to represent the Irish sector, building and nurturing relationships that are key Irish racing.

Of course that all stopped last year, so how did he and ITM react in the strangest of years?

“If 2020 was anything for us, it was constantly changing challenges,” he says. “I suppose the biggest one, and maybe the best example of how the year went, was how we reacted to the breeze-up sales. We have one breeze-up sale in Ireland every year but then as sales got rescheduled and moved, at one stage last year we were set to have four.

“The team got stuck into working with the Breeze-Up Consignors Association, putting a plan in place to video horses and get pictures of horses out there. We adapted very quickly and budgeted for it, but then it changed again and all of a sudden there were no breeze-up sales in Ireland.

“All those challenges – you try to react differently to each one. When the Tattersalls Ireland Breeze-up Sale moved to Newmarket, we tried to help the vendors a little bit with the additional costs of getting the horses over there.

“It’s no one’s fault (sales getting rescheduled). The biggest sales that got hit were the Irish store sales. Last minute our first store sale got cancelled and moved and it was very, very tough on the vendors. It’s not tough for ITM. The vendors are the ones who have horses primed for certain dates.

“When you think of the breeze-up guys, they’re priming their horses for certain dates, they have very little time to react. What we had to do was to stay flexible, keep promoting what we know and get it out there, keep on to our clients that the sales will take place. Talking to the sales companies, there was never a case of sales not happening, it was just a case of when they would happen.

“What I was proud of was that every member of the ITM team put up their hand to travel to the UK for the month leading up to the Orby Sale, working in Doncaster and Newmarket, aiming to do what we do in Ireland, as best as we could in the UK. That wasn’t an easy thing to do.”

Positive

A big positive from 2020 is the acceleration of online sales. Goffs recorded 5,679 online bids in 2020, from buyers in 14 different countries. This resulted in 437 horses sold online accumulating €5,180,100.

Tattersalls also had promising online bid figures with 232 bids recorded, 29% of which were accepted, originating from Ireland, UK, America, France and Czech Republic.

Goffs CEO Henry Beeby has recently labelled online sales as a gamechanger and O’Neill agrees: “Online sales are here to stay. It might not be in as big a format always but it will always be there from now on.

“Last year was a huge learning curve for us. We were trying to learn from the Magic Millions Sale and other sales in Australia – What was required? What did the agent need to do? What did the buyer want to see? We’re still learning. Heights and weights are now required. What’s the norm for a proper video?

“The real big online sale for us was going to be the Autumn Yearling Sale in Goffs. That was a huge success online. We announced a scheme, that instead of the inward buyer payment we give to people travelling to Ireland, we would give an inward buyer payment to people who bought online. It would help toward the cost of shipping the horse back.

“For the first time, we got 12 horses sold to Serbia, it opened up a whole new market for us there. There were over 40 horses sold to Poland and Hungary at that sale as well. We got huge compliments that the online buyer scheme was a big help.

“That online buyer payment is here to stay as well, it’s not a one-off. Of course, first and foremost, ITM wants people on the ground at the sales ring, that is our modus operandi, doing business in Ireland and buying Irish horses, that’s what we’re about and that’s what the biggest challenge is going to be this year.”

In a normal year, ITM would be in India at this exact time, followed by trips to the Middle East where the team do a lot of work prior to the Dubai Carnival. Then it would be back home for regular short visits to Britain to see jumps trainers leading up to Cheltenham.

The biggest part of ITM, he says, is building relationships and that is something they will look to establish again in 2021.

“If I could fly somewhere in the morning to get the vaccine I would, and the team would as well, so that we can get back out meeting clients,” O’Neill says. “We have a big race upcoming in Doha, but the protocols in Qatar make it not worth our while to go there. On a positive note, Paul Hensey, is there in his role with Qatar racing and he can help us out.

“We need to get back out there and tell people that when we do open up, that what we did before, we’re going to do even better this year. It’s putting in place everything – the right hotels, the entertainment, providing transport links – to make sure that when buyers come to Ireland, they have a good time and the main job they have is to look and buy horses.

“That is the biggest thing we’ll be doing. Getting on a plane. Yes you can do calls by Zoom but our game is face to face and we have to get back out there as quick as we can.

“Thank God the vaccine is here and it will roll around. The more countries that we hear that the vaccine is going brilliant, the better. It means those markets are opened up to travelling here.

“So it’s not just about the vaccine going well here, we need it done well in all the relevant counties for us, so people can get back and enjoy doing business in Ireland.”

“They’re proving very popular and they’re only going to go from strength to strength as a success in promoting horses unraced and horse

Optimistic

O’Neill is optimistic that the majority of sales in 2021 will take place on their allocated date and that international buyers will be able to travel here. He is full of praise for the resilience the industry has shown and believes that we will see the benefits of getting through such a tumultuous period once things return to some sort of normality.

Despite all the turmoil, he says the maintenance of quality standards of Irish horses at home and abroad is invaluable going forward. That continued in 2020 with key wins for Irish-bred horses all across the globe.

Covid aside, the Irish product has arguably never been stronger and that opens up new avenues for ITM to explore, and O’Neill and his team are chomping at the bit.

“The American market is very, very strong, especially for horses in training and private sales,” O’Neill says.

“Some of the bloodstock agents do a remarkable job in getting horses sold into the US. Especially the west coast, in California, we’ve a lot of horses over there doing very well. Horses like River Boyne, who has just come back, having won A Grade 1.

River Boyne flew the flag for Irish breds in American this year, the Dandy Man colt is seeh here winning the Grade 1 Frank E. Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita

“We have to put more work into getting more Americans to come to Ireland, get them into Irish racing and buying at the Irish sales. It’s something we have to do more of this year as soon as we can get back out there because those private sales and the American market as a whole are huge to the Irish industry, especially with the growth of turf racing over there.

“The big one that is exciting us at the moment is Saudi Arabia. We had two Irish-bred winners on the Saudi Cup undercard. There’s huge opportunities there. It’s great that we have an Irish man to the fore out there in Tom Ryan.

“Before Covid there were positives coming out for China. It has been talked about for so long but that could be the real big one. There have been signs that the government there are getting more in behind the racing industry, so it might not happen this year but it’s a country that we really believe that once it does happen, it can only be a huge benefit to Ireland and the Irish-bred horse.

“European Racing was very resilient, throughout Covid. A big positive for us is Eastern Europe, we’re seeing a lot more horses sold there.

Scandinavia is very strong for its relative size, and is a market going well for us, we’re getting our fair share of horses sold there. But we have to keep working hard to get out there and keep meeting these people.”

Barrier trials

One of the more recent tools used to attract foreign buyers, particularly those in Hong Kong, was the introduction of barrier trials, which have been hailed as a significant success.

They were the project of ITM’s international representative Jeremy Greene, who having spent 15 years working in Hong Kong, saw the high value local buyers placed on barrier trials in Australia and New Zealand.

O’Neill said: “This year we had two days of barrier trials and the EBF have come on board as a sponsor which is great.

"We had 143 horses in total from 40 different stables. From the trials we’ve had winners in Hong Kong, America and England.

“They’re proving very popular and they’re only going to go from strength to strength as a success in promoting horses unraced and horses that maybe can win first time out after competing in a barrier trial. All that helps that private market to kick on.”

Kicking on as exactly what O’Neill and his team will be doing as soon as they can. He is hugely positive about 2021.

“Everything is moving in the right direction. It might not look that way right now but we’re getting there and we will get back up and running properly.

“We have budgeted to be back on a plane by March, that might be a bit optimistic, but we will be out there as soon as possible, promoting and getting stuck into the sales, and getting people back to Ireland.

“I would be very confident that by the store sales and yearling sales, we will have international buyers at our sales.”

O’Neill on …

Point-to-point stoppage: It’s very tough on the point sector because this is the business end of the year for these guys. When they’re back out there, we need to make sure we have all the information to help promote those sales. The vast majority of those boutique sales take place in the UK, but if ITM is in a position to help, with any information that’s required from the races, from the point-to-point to help market those horses, that is there and it’s done.

Brexit: We all knew there was going to be challenges with Brexit; the fact that the deal was done so late is the biggest problem. It gave no time for any contingencies or plans to be put in place. People have had very little time to put in a plan in place when they didn’t know what was coming. Hopefully in the next 10 days that will all settle down. People get into a routine and we can get back to some bit of normality or we can learn what is the new norm. If we know what the new norm is, people will comply with it and adjust very quickly.

Virtual Stallion Trail: Quite a lot of business is done during the Stallion Trail so we had to make sure that we did something to show that the industry is open for business and to promote all the wonderful stallions that we have. We’re very happy with how it went and we will be sitting down next week just to go through the learnings from it. Alex Cairns led the team that organised it and we were just speaking about it the other day - there has been well over 1,000,000 impressions across social media of the farms. And, if anything now we’ve got great footage now to share around the world all year around.