Nine Irish racecourses faced the loss of at least one fixture last season and one racecourse manager who already knew exactly how that felt is Margaret Fogarty, a keen race goer who understands the dilemmas faced by racecourses, from both sides of the fence.

“The loss of a fixture has had a serious impact. A significant impact,” she stresses, as we sit looking out over what has to be one of the more picturesque of Irish tracks. “Gate receipts are our bread and butter, our two main race days are in January and February, when we’re at the mercy of the weather, and they represent 40% of our year’s income, so if we have a bad January and February we are feeling it for a very long time and it’s difficult to recover.”

Another difficulty to overcome is the cutbacks in funding by HRI (Horse Racing Ireland), but there seems to be no one within the industry who doesn’t agree that sustaining prize money levels is the priority. For managers such as Fogarty, it’s a matter of cutting the cloth and surviving.

“The difficulty for everyone is that we’re coming from such a high base,” she points out. “We have to remember that there was an industry before the Celtic Tiger and that our primary primary industry is one based on agriculture and tourism. Any industry that employs people from those core areas is sustainable.”

Employment and staff are high on Fogarty’s agenda and she takes great pride in the self-sufficiency of her course in terms of grounds keeping and maintenance. With a successful golf club combined with the racecourse, superior upkeep is vital to the survival of Gowran Park.

“I would like to see the role of HRI being to allow capital development, but I think we will all just have to tighten up,” she says. “I would love to see a scenario where funding is ring-fenced. I appreciate the serious concerns about overall funding, but the main level of concern should be how to ring-fence that funding. I would like to see racecourse improvement schemes, co-funded, based on a ten-year development plan.”

That scenario still remains a long way off. In the meantime, Fogarty is managing to successfully keep her own house in order. “We heavily reinvest, all our income goes back into the track and the golf course here, our core products,” she explains. “We’re fortunate to have a good skilled crew, everything here is done in-house. If we were spending money on contractors we would see it as a failure. In our business, where income is based on just 16 days a year, going back to basics is perhaps not a bad thing. We all lived it while we could, we’re just going to have to pay for it for longer than we thought.”

A crucial part of the course’s income is derived from Media Rights, which Fogarty views as a just balance for the loss of stay at home race fans. As she says, “Media rights are highly welcome. For most courses the income is used to pay off existing commitments. The media rights basically goes directly to the banks. Technology is driving punters away, they can sit at home and watch and bet on two or three race meetings, with betting in running and other bets unavailable on course. Those people will never appear on a racecourse. Media rights simply represent the income lost from modern technology. We don’t need those people through the gates as we are getting the media rights by way of balance.

“We’ve lost out on bookmaking,” she continues, “there’s an entire audience who have left racing because they see themselves as being penalised for coming. There is so much instantly available information and it’s very difficult to reward someone for coming racing, it’s the nature of technology. There are young men betting online who have never appeared at a racetrack. Technology is driving punters away. That’s the balance provided by media rights.”

She also believes there’s another section of the public lost to racing. “We have lost a generation who have no passion for the horse,” she says with obvious concern. “The socialiser we spent a great deal of money chasing has gone. They were very expensive to recruit, but they were not engaging with the sport, there was no loyalty or fundamental interest. Courses did a great deal of entertaining on site, but how much education? As a provincial track we really didn’t gain that many, I’m now glad to say, so we didn’t lose. My biggest concern is looking after existing customers and we’re almost starting from scratch attracting new ones.”

Fogarty is concentrating on building a superior race programme to keep the numbers coming through the turnstiles. “Since I’ve started here we’ve done as much as possible to increase our NH programme. It seems to be quite populist to knock the Flat and many of the significant breeding operations, but that is a core part of the business and we all have to look at the Classics and the next big two-year-old. It’s fantastic to have them start here or at other provincial tracks. We have to ensure we provide the opportunity for maidens who could go on to be the next Sea The Stars. Working on good quality Flat programmes is crucial for the whole industry. We are working hard all the time to attract maidens and novice hurdlers, the future stars.”

As a keen race goer herself, Fogarty is acutely aware of the self-imposed barriers racing has inadvertently put up to deter new enthusiasts. “Racing needs to lose its exclusivity,” she insists. “We need to see the small guys winning. There’s a great danger of racing becoming polarised. By it’s very nature racing has to be competitive. Point-to-points and local horses have massive support. We need to keep an eye to the small guy. We need to do that through division of prize money and ensuring that if a horse gets to the track then it has a fair crack at the whip. I saw a Cornish-trained horse winning a prize of £700 up at Stratford in England. Now that wouldn’t have even put diesel in the lorry. Local interest will come back, but it’s hard to deliver a competitive product on the track. That has to be in the hands of the people who do prize money. You have to help the guy with only a couple of horses keep the show on the road.”

Keeping the show on the road involves keeping interest high in that show. “We have to ask ourselves what attracted us to racing?” Fogarty reminds us, as she goes back to basics for the answers. “Why did we go racing? We did have an understanding and an interest. The people going racing now are the people involved in the sport.” Their custom is appreciated, but, like everyone, she wants to introduce new faces. “Other sports are so readily available and driven by television coverage,” she says, “we need to take responsibility for communicating the passion. It’s going to be a very long build up and a very long job. We are running a Kids Go Racing Club in November and the pony club initiative at the Curragh is very good. Student race days and family days have proven popular. It’s a very slow burn, but we have to attract newcomers.”

Customers still have an entitlement to full restaurant facilities and bars, even if there are only two through the gate, and, of course, that is very expensive for the racecourse. Everything has to be perfectly right, every time, for the first time race goer.

“Accessibility is vital,” she adds, “the new motorway means we have a good infrastructure; we’re now only 40 minutes from the Curragh. We are operating a free shuttle service from Kilkenny every race day, to make it easier for people to come. People like to be where it’s busy. And we have to make it right when they do come, so that they’ll return.”

Maintaining standards on a reduced budget is a tough juggling act, but one that Fogarty sees as essential. “We have to control our expenditure without it being visible,” she warns, “keep facilities right, I can’t stress that enough. Routine maintenance is vital. Keep facilities in the best possible condition. We have to be careful that when we’re cutting costs it doesn’t affect the race day experience and quality of the programme.”

In this, she is greatly helped by a committed and passionate group of owners. “Privately-owned courses like this are very fortunate,” she admits. “The committee is not touching any dividends, it all goes straight back into the course. We’re very lucky and the committees deserve full credit. They are the unsung heroes. Racing is full of unsung heroes. Stewards, for example, take an awful knocking and you have to wonder why they do it, they give so much and for so little thanks. I go racing all the time and I’m pleasantly surprised by courses that have just seven or eight fixtures run by local committees. These are people who have passion. Our weighing room here was refurbished in 2009 and that was an entirely non-revenue generating project, but our committee made that commitment.

“That passion is lost in the new generation. They want instant gratification. I am worried that in ten years time we won’t have any volunteers for anything. The GAA does a very good job involving the community and young people, but I don’t see it anywhere else. That does worry me.”