Mr. Brian Kavanagh:

I thank the Acting Chairman. I am grateful to the committee for the time and attention given to our quite considerable concerns.

It is no exaggeration to say the Irish and British racing and breeding industries are among the most integrated sectors of all sporting and commercial activities in these islands. Ireland relies heavily on Britain to buy our horses. The export of thoroughbreds is estimated to exceed €220 million per year, with 65% of the foals born in Ireland every year exported. Some 80% of these exports go to Britain. By any measure that is a substantial sector. When it comes to exporting our racehorses, especially those destined for the jump racing market, there is no replacement market for Britain. Unlike many other Brexit-hit sectors, we simply cannot adapt our product to suit new markets. Royal Ascot, Cheltenham, Aintree and Epsom cannot be replicated in another country.

As it stands, Britain relies heavily on Ireland to supply the racehorses it needs to operate its racing industry. Ireland and Britain have always been at one, and any uncoupling of our relationship would be very damaging to British racing and catastrophic to an Irish racing and breeding industry worth over €1 billion per year to the economy. In effect, we are twin industries, joined at the hip, with horses, trainers, and riders regularly moving between both jurisdictions. This was illustrated only last weekend when Aidan O'Brien's Tipperary-trained horse won the Epsom derby ridden by young Pádraig Beggy from Dunboyne in County Meath. It was the seventh Irish-trained winner of the Epsom derby in the last ten years.

With Britain overwhelmingly our main market, the sector here is considerably exposed in the event of a hard Brexit. Last week we attended a meeting with representatives from the British Horseracing Authority and France Galop in London and found, reassuringly perhaps, that our fears are shared by our international counterparts. The key issue is the free movement of racehorses. This has been secured between Ireland, Britain and France since the early 1970s and has underpinned the racing and breeding industries in the three countries for the last 50 years. It is a tripartite agreement between the three ministries of agriculture that works exceptionally well, and it is essential that the status quoremains. Once a horse is registered with a racing authority in one of the three countries, it is entitled to move freely between them without need for veterinary examination or inspection. The horse racing industry has a reputation at EU level for the highest animal welfare standards, but any restriction to the free movement of horses challenges those standards.

Horses are not commodities like agriculture produce and cannot wait at ports or borders. There are an estimated 10,000 horse movements between Britain and Ireland a year, with a weekly average of 200 horse movements. The implications of a hard border would be severe for both people and horses. Nobody in the racing industries in Ireland, Britain or France wants to face the logistical challenge of moving horses through border controls and checkpoints. Thoroughbreds are highly sensitive animals, bred for centuries for their flight response, and horses in training are young athletes at the peak of their fitness. Any Brexit-induced delays that increase time stuck in horse boxes in queues at ports could prove extremely difficult for trainers and their staff to manage. This would have an impact on the horse's ability to perform to its maximum potential on the racetrack.

Irish horsemen and women have been world leaders in racing and bloodstock for decades. There is no other sport in which we have excelled at such a high level for so long. In Cheltenham this year, there were a record 19 Irish-trained winners. More than two in three races were won by horses trained in Ireland. At Royal Ascot last year, one in three races were won by Irish-trained horses, and almost two in three of the winners were foaled in Ireland. Proximity and ease of access to racing in the UK is a key element in these achievements.

While the sport of horse racing is one of Ireland’s greatest and most enduring pastimes, it is also the shop window for a key agriculture industry with a huge rural reach, which has a proven ability to provide rural employment and inward investment in every nook and cranny of the country. It is estimated that 14,000 people are employed in our industry. It generates economic activity of up to €1 billion per year, as I said. The bloodstock industry needs a shop window, and whether it is Cheltenham, Aintree, Epsom or Royal Ascot, at many key points of the year that shop window is in Britain. Britain hosts some of the most prestigious horse races in the world and is a proving ground for the Irish racing industry. These meetings are currently easily accessible to Irish trainers, owners and horses. It is also a matter of continuing to attract foreign direct investment. The ready and easy access to British racing is attractive to overseas investors to base their bloodstock in Ireland. Any impediment to that access would be an obvious disincentive to owners keeping their horses in Ireland to be trained or bred, nor can we rule out the future possibility of Britain introducing incentives for its own industry over time.

Our industry enjoys a lot of natural advantages of climate and soil structure, as well as a natural affinity for horses among the people, but Brexit does expose our geographical vulnerabilities. The east-west border provides its own set of concerns, but here on this island, we have major worries over any hard Border between North and South. I understand that is the focus of the committee today. Horse racing and breeding is essentially an all-island activity. Racing has always been operated on a 32-county basis. Foals born in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland carry the IRE suffix after their name in the same way a foal born in Cork or Wexford does.

Two of Ireland’s 26 racecourses are in Northern Ireland and would be located outside the EU post-Brexit. Downpatrick and Down Royal are two highly progressive and popular racecourses and although located in the North, they are very much part of the Irish racing industry.

To emphasise just how much they are an essential part of the fabric of Irish racing, nine out of ten horses racing at those tracks are trained in the Republic of Ireland. Down Royal and Downpatrick receive capital development grants and prize money support from Horse Racing Ireland and the racing industry in Northern Ireland is unanimous in its wish to remain part of the infrastructure here. From an administrative perspective, the complications increase when one considers that all trainers in Northern Ireland are licensed by the Irish Turf Club and races are staged under Turf Club rules. As I stated, foals born in Northern Ireland carry the (IRE) suffix rather than (GB).

Anything other than the current integration and ease of movement for people and horses will have significant negative consequences for Ireland – be that between North and South of Ireland, or west to east between Ireland and Britain. We seek the committee's support to protect what is a significant indigenous industry and Mr. Mullin and I will be happy to address any questions it may have.