PHILIP Rothwell, the trainer who saddled more National Hunt winners than anyone outside Ireland’s top four stables last season, has praised Horse Racing Ireland for trying to improve the lot of smaller trainers but says the controversial new series of restricted races is not the right approach of doing so.

Temperatures have risen this week over HRI’s plans to roll out 60 races next year for trainers who have saddled less than 50 Irish National Hunt winners in either of the last two seasons.

It’s understood that the four trainers who will be unable to compete in the series of races, Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Henry de Bromhead and Gavin Cromwell, have had legal representations made on their behalf to HRI over being excluded from having runners in the series. HRI is not commenting on the situation.

Rothwell, whose haul of 42 winners last season represented the best tally of his 25-year career, was the only other trainer to record more than 20 winners over jumps in Ireland last term and does not agree with HRI’s means of providing further opportunities for yards below the top level.

“I hugely admire what HRI is trying to do but I think they’ve gone about it all wrong and have completely missed the goalposts,” Rothwell told The Irish Field.

“I do not think that any trainer should be penalised for training winners. I definitely applaud that HRI is trying its best to come up with a solution. However, nobody ever asked me for my view on the situation and I’m the one who would benefit most from this initiative. I’m the one who escapes the restriction as such, having trained close to the cut-off limit last season, and I don’t see it as any help to me whatsoever.

“I think they would be better served putting on those 60 races as beginners’ chases for horses rated 102 or less, 109 or less, and the same for maiden hurdles with those rating bands. If they did that, no trainer would be ineligible from any race, but the likes of Willie and Gordon won’t have a big number of horses who fit that criteria of race anyway so it still provides an opportunity for trainers with runners of that lower level.

“Likewise, I want to aspire to be the best I can be, not to fit into a criteria.”

Series structure

Races in the series are set to include bumpers, maiden hurdles, beginners’ chases and handicap hurdles. It incorporates a similar series of 17 races that are currently in place with similar winner-restriction caps.

Rothwell added: “The top trainers are not at fault. They just have the better league of horse. What’s the point in taking them out of the equation when most smaller trainers haven’t a horse to compete in open beginners’ chases or open maiden hurdles anyway?

“I actually think the races that are likely to happen now could end up being farcical. You could hypothetically have Joseph O’Brien, Noel Meade or Jessica Harrington winning a beginners’ chase by a wide margin with a 150-rated hurdler, and I fear there won’t be competition to take them on in those races.

“When I see the British authorities doing very little to address things there, I applaud HRI for being proactive and I have admiration for what they do. The likes of Sandy Shaw [National Hunt handicapper] is brilliant at coming up with ideas and adjusting rating bands - he’s proactive for Irish racing.”

Different viewpoint

John Fitzgerald of the Restricted Trainers Association, which represents handlers with four horses or fewer, is disappointed by the pushback to HRI’s proposal.

“I find it incredible that there is so much negative attention,” said Fitzgerald.

“In 2022, HRI introduced a series of races for trainers with less than 20 winners and nobody complained then. So is it the number of races or the principle of supporting a balance in racing going forward the problem? I have always said unless we protect all of racing, we are protecting nothing and the future isn’t good.

“We already have a number of restrictions for horses, age, jockeys, sires, sales values and handicap etc, so why is this one so difficult to understand as it is a very small percentage of races in the racing calendar?”

He added: “When you have monopolies in sport or in business, it never ends well as it is a slow burn downwards. I am by no means taking away for the excellence and success of our top trainers but we should and need to have enough to go around for all of the industry to survive, otherwise we will become less competitive as we lose trainers and owners.”

HRI will also alter the rating bands in National Hunt racing in 2025. Rating bands in handicaps will now be in increments of 10lb rather than the current system of 7lb, with the lowest rating band being 0-100 and random ballots applying in this category.

Handicap hurdles will have their current minimum rating of 80 removed, with horses now running off a rating of not lower than 72. According to HRI: “This will ensure that every handicap hurdle will utilise the full range of weights and will provide more horses with an opportunity to be competitive.”