HORSE Racing Ireland has taken steps to give smaller National Hunt trainers a better chance of having winners by excluding the top four trainers from having entries in 60 nominated races in 2025.

The move comes a week after HRI published statistics which showed that the total number of National Hunt entries for the first six months of 2024 had fallen by almost 10% and the total number of runners was down 7%.

Those declines were in part due to poor weather but this week’s announcement by HRI is an acknowledgment that Ireland’s elite jumps trainers are so successful that the vast majority of their rivals are struggling to compete.

Beginning on January 1st, HRI will schedule 60 races throughout the calendar year which will be restricted to trainers who have trained less than 50 Irish jumps winners in either of the last two full Irish National Hunt seasons. This rules out entries from Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Henry de Bromhead and Gavin Cromwell.

Races in this series will include bumpers, maiden hurdles, beginners’ chases and handicap hurdles. It will incorporate a similar series of 17 races which currently identifies opportunities for trainers with defined levels of success over previous seasons.

Jonathan Mullin, HRI’s director of racing, said: “This series of 60 races has been designed by the HRI Programmes Committee to give trainers the confidence to attract new owners into their yards with the knowledge that there is a programme of races there to support them in that endeavour. There are already a small number of races in the calendar that provide this function, and this series is a step up in quantity which is intended to deliver a body of races substantial enough for trainers to encourage owners into their business and plan campaigns for those horses.”

Ryan McElligott, chief executive of the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, welcomed the initiative. “We’re seeing a very large percentage of National Hunt trainers who are struggling - that is what they are telling me and the statistics back that up. You only have to look back at the small field sizes we had for some National Hunt races in January, the height of the season. The weather may have been poor but the problem goes deeper than that. This new series of races is not going to cure all ills but it will provide opportunities for smaller yards to have more winners and perhaps they can use that momentum to take their operations to the next level.”

John Fitzgerald, head of the Restricted Trainers Association, took a different view. “I love the fact that there’s 60 races in the series but they have only excluded four trainers from them, which is not enough.

“I was pushing for three years for races like these and in late 2022 they released four races for trainers who had 20 winners or less. Those races all had full fields, they were successful, so why not have more of those? At least have a sliding scale for some of these new races, rather than opening them all up to trainers with 50 winners or less.

“The reality is that there are races confined to jockeys who have had a certain level of success and there are races for horses of varying levels of experience. But when it comes to trainers there is one-size fits all, and that should be addressed.”

Another change being introduced in the new year involves the rating bands in National Hunt racing. 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 also 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.”

McElligott commented: “It’s a notable amendment and my understanding is that it will create a greater number of opportunities for what is a substantial cohort of the racehorse population.”

Andrew Finnegan, HRI’s race planning manager, commented: “These alterations to the National Hunt rating bands will provide more opportunities to lower-level hurdlers and provide a clearer distinction between all handicap bands. These changes are being introduced by the HRI Programmes Committee following consultation with the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners and the IHRB National Hunt handicappers.”