AS we sit in the headquarters of the flourishing company he developed with his brothers Vincent, Liam and Freddie, Joe Keeling points to the black and white photograph on the wall. Taken in the 1940s, it shows rows of people walking through various furrows, picking strawberries on the farm run by his father, William.

Joe studied commerce in Rathmines and after emerging with his degree, joined the family business. The brothers started the trading company in 1973.

Now a multinational firm, Keeling’s provides fresh fruit, vegetables, salads and flowers, and employs 2000 people. It is striking that head office at St Margaret’s is on the same land where the people in the photograph are picking strawberries.

Keeling stepped back from the fray in 2013 and his children Caroline, David and William are now running operations. The timing enabled him to accept the invitation from the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, to succeed Denis Brosnan as chairman of Horse Racing Ireland.

“Simon asked Caroline would I do the job and she said ‘Why would you want him? He won’t do what he’s told’,” he says, laughing.

You don’t want a yes man if you want to make progress. An objective view, allied with his proven track record in the private sector and a long association in horse racing made him a judicious appointment.

The love of horses is lifelong. By the time he was 11, he had saved £40 to buy a pony, but his father warned him to steer clear. The passion remained though, fuelled by a trip to the Irish National Stud, where seeing Tulyar in the flesh was a thrill.

It was through his father-in-law that Joe was introduced to racehorse ownership. Willie Byrne was a trainer on the Phoenix Park who had won the Irish Cambridgeshire and the Irish Cesarewitch, and also enjoyed a couple of Royal Ascot successes.

He left Irish Firs to Mary and she sent him to her first cousin to train. Luckily, Mick O’Toole knew a thing or two about the game and Irish Firs won five times. Others who have done well for Joe are Blueberry Boy, Alone He Stands, Fourth Of July, Teach Nua, Elusive Paris and Market Lass, all with different trainers.

He has always believed in supporting different handlers and understands the difficulties they are facing. Improving the lot of the owners is his priority, and a 29% reduction in costs, allied with increased prize money of €9.9m has gone some way to doing that. There is much more to do though. To that end, he feels that the onus is ultimately on track management.

The 71-year-old will not be extending his term after its conclusion in March 2018 because he believes fervently in youth being given its head.

Just a matter of hours after we sat down to talk about some of racing’s issues, the Horse Racing Ireland Bill was passed through the Dáil. The process to streamline racing governance has been fraught with difficulties, leading to a particularly tense relationship between HRI and the Turf Club at times.

According to Keeling, the business tool that has served him best since taking on the job is the implementation of a personal policy to try to understand somebody else’s stance. Maybe that’s why the process is almost complete, although he points to HRI trio Brian Kavanagh (chief executive), Jason Morris (director of racing) and Suzanne Eade (director of finance) as being key players, along with Turf Club leadership.

How do you view your term so far?

I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. We’ve achieved an awful lot but only because of the team that are there. I inherited a team in HRI that was set up by Brian Kavanagh and Denis Brosnan. I can’t speak highly enough for HRI, how professional they are. For a semi-state body, they’re brilliant. Brian is great.

What are the successes?

The successes for me are the reduction of costs to owners by 29% at the end of 2016 and increasing prize money by nearly €10m. I felt the owners weren’t treated with enough respect. We’re trying to improve the experience of the owners at the racecourse and we’ve made good progress but still have a long way to go. I’ve done a lot of work on the catering at racecourses. It’s something I’m passionate about, giving them good quality food.

There are still issues in prize money but it’s about trying to improve the percentage that the owner gets from the prize money because we need more owners. We need to promote new syndicates and encourage them.

The problem with syndicates is, especially if you’ve only one horse, what do you do when it’s a failure? I think there’s room for something like the Supreme Racing Club that Willie Mullins has. They have 30 or 40 horses. So people can be involved at an affordable price. I think it costs maybe €160 a month to buy a horse and that will bring in an awful lot more people. We’re looking at things we can do to help in that area.

Much of the increased prize money is at the top though, for the likes of the Irish Champion Stakes and Irish Derby. To help most owners, that needs to go further down the food chain, doesn’t it?

We need to do more everywhere. We have increased the minimum prize money a lot but it’s only back to what it was in 2007. We need more money and we will generate more money. Hopefully the new taxation bill (Betting (Amendment Act), which came out last year will do that. Maybe over time taxation will go up a bit and we can have more prize money.

We’re doing a lot to help bookmakers too. We’ve reduced their charges to operate. It’s not a lot but we’re trying to do more. We’re trying to reduce trainers’ costs. We can’t just look at one area in isolation. I have a lot of sympathy for trainers. It’s very difficult, particularly in the last six or seven years.

Trainers have been dropping like flies.

What I want to encourage is that the young person with ability has a chance of going from being a small trainer to a big one. All the best trainers started with very little. They didn’t start at the top, so you must make it easy for the person who started with four horses. We’d like to make it harder maybe to get a training licence and provide more help for trainers on the business side. Because some of them go in and know everything about horses but know nothing about collecting the money. We’re looking at ways of helping trainers in the future, everything we can.

When the top trainers achieve internationally, it is brilliant for the broader industry, but are there negative consequences domestically when they dominate so much?

There is a problem, but it’s just like we used to have a lot of small shops and now the bigger supermarkets have most of the business, but there’s still room for a good operation. There are probably going to be less trainers with more horses but you want a core of young people starting, getting a chance to come in at the lower level and build it up.

How about having confined races in the programme?

We’re looking at having races for trainers who haven’t had more than 10 winners or something like that. I remember in the 1960s at a trainers’ meeting, they wanted to have races that excluded Vincent O’Brien. It was just banter, but it’s not a new issue.

With you finishing in two years, getting the Curragh completed is obviously important. Planning permission is being lodged at the end of the month. The challenge then is to get people in the gate. Will the facilities be a game-changer?

We can change that before we open. We can get more people in the door by looking after them. It’s about facilities but it’s about the management team too. The focus has not been on the racegoers. It’s not a question of letting them in free, it’s enjoying it. People pay for value and letting people in for nothing doesn’t do anything.

You’ve got to make the experience good. You need the food good, you need the service good. You need the whole experience good.

What was acceptable 20 years ago isn’t now. You want the Curragh, Leopardstown, to be places you want to be. When people come back to Cheltenham or Punchestown, it’s not because they made money, it’s because they had a good time. And losing money doesn’t put them off coming back.

Leopardstown is now on the stage. It was at 3/10, it’s now a 6/10. There have been huge improvements in facilities, we’ve got new caterers, but change was slow when I moved in first. I suppose change, being a semi-state body, is different than a private business but we’re getting there.

Also at the Curragh, we’ve got Padraig McManus. We were so lucky to get him because he’s absolutely brilliant He’s not a soft touch!

We will be interviewing next month for chief executive. We have 19 people applied. We’re also spending money on the gallops. They badly needed investment.

If we provide the best gallops in the world and maintain them, we won’t have to do a lot else. People will want to be there.

It is important to mention that in this and others, we have had nothing but the best support from Minister Coveney and his officials at the Department. We are deeply appreciative of it.

All the tracks are getting their act together in terms of facilities, albeit very gradually in some cases.

We have a €100m development plan for the racecourses. We’re putting up 40% of that. The racecourses are doing really well because of the media rights money and in fairness they’re investing. Look at Naas; they have some beautiful plans. HRI have employed some of the best people in Ireland and the UK to advise racecourses when they’re getting work done. So we’re not just giving them the grant, we’re giving them the help to do it and the racecourses have welcomed that.

You mentioned the Turf Club earlier. How difficult have the last few years been?

The new legislation is coming in now - we’ll have a new board probably in February. We’re working closer with the Turf Club. Relations at times have been difficult but you’d have to say that (former senior stewards) Neville O’Byrne, Roddy Ryan and John McStay, they changed things. The Turf Club are now a shareholder of The Curragh.

It took a lot of work but we’ve got a younger team. I’m really looking forward to working with Meta Osborne and Harry McCalmont. There is change taking place and we both want to work better together. We’ve done some cost-saving and working together; we can do better. The whole issue for Meta and I, is that we’re both working for the betterment of racing.

The old guard are reluctant to change but in all my time, no one ever suggested that we’d have anything to do with integrity. That’s not our business. But the administration and the control of costs - we’re paying for it. The Turf Club weren’t as accountable as they are now. All the money that we’re giving them every year, we have to account for that. We can’t just say “There’s the budget and pay out the money.” They have been slow to accept that but the new team accept that completely.

There will be a new HRI board with three ministerial appointees. How does that change things?

The minister appoints the chairman and two others, and the Turf Club representation goes down from four to three. We have achieved a lot but we have achieved a lot thanks to the support of the board. Some of the best board members have been from the Turf Club. That won’t change.

Recent floods have affected fixtures. Denis Brosnan always argued that we needed a new track in the southern half of the country. Is that in the pipeline at all?

We are looking at a new all-weather. That’ll be in the plan for the next five years. Dundalk has been a great success but we could do with another one in the southern half. It’s essential for the winter because you can’t put horses away in November and bring them back out in March or April. You still have to pay for them. It used to be £8.50 a week, now it’s €50 a day! So it’s a different ball game.

Denis Brosnan was in the job 20 years. Any chance of you staying on?

What I’d like to get is younger people on the board. I think it’s time to go when that term is done and give it to someone younger. But it’s difficult to get younger people that have time. This opportunity came at the right time for me. If it came at any other time, it wouldn’t have suited. Denis wanted to go for a long time but in fairness to Simon, he wanted to get someone with a similar passion and interest.

Have you used anything from the business world to good effect in this role?

It’s looking at things from other points of view. I always felt, when you’re dealing with people, if you can see their point of view you’re half-way there to a solution. Forget about your point of view. Understand the other person’s point of view. That’s a key to any changes you want to make.

What is the most common compliment you hear? And complaint?

The nicest thing is people saying you’re trying to look after everybody. I’ve got a lot of complaints about catering, which is difficult to address.

It needs money.

Ah no. It just needs management. It’s nothing to do with money. It’s proper understanding of food, and management. A lot of racecourses appoint a caterer, get a 10% rebate and leave it to the caterer. We’ve got to change that. It’s a crucial part of it. The caterers need the resources to do it. The tracks need to invest in better kitchens, cold storage. All of this is happening. It’s slow but it is happening.

The success in Leopardstown with the catering was enormous. There was a 30-40% increase in spend in the first year. They didn’t see it as a big issue initially but in fairness to Pat Keogh and his team, they were the first to admit it was the right way and it’s been a great success.

Optimistic then?

Absolutely. We’re going to improve the experience for the owners and the racegoers. That’s the key message.