Welfare Wins Out as Greyhound Racing Ireland Releases Figures
Greyhound Racing Ireland (GRI), the commercial semi-state body that reports to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, has released its 2022 annual report. The 55-page document shows pre-tax profits at the Limerick-headquartered organisation decreased by 63 percent to €1.08 million compared to 2021.
However, as the country clawed itself free of the Covid crisis, the report states 322,124 patrons attended greyhound meetings in 2022. The figure represents an increase of more than 100 percent on the 158,029 people who went greyhound racing in 2021. The Irish Greyhound Derby final was the busiest betting night of the year for both attendance and betting turnover.
A huge crowd was at Dublin’s Shelbourne Park Stadium for the 2022 Irish Greyhound Derby final. But, according to GRI figures, the average attendance per meeting in 2022 was 237 (roughly outnumbering runners by a ratio of four to one).
The Irish Republic, with a population of 5.1 million people, has 14 greyhound stadiums – a ratio of one per 364,285 people. England, Scotland and Wales have 20 licences greyhound tracks, meaning there is one for every 3.35 million people.
However, unlike the UK tracks and its regulatory body, the Greyhound Board of Great Britain, the GRI benefits from State funding. In 2022, the organisation received a grant of €17.6 million from the Government’s Horse & Greyhound Racing Fund. For 2023, that sum has increased to €18.2 million, but it was set at 19.2 million in 2021.
Gri Doubled up and Doubled Down
GRI’s annual report shows tote turnover more than doubled from its 2021 €8.8 million figure. €18.9 million was gambled on the tote in 2022. However, operating costs incurred by ‘tote and race-related operating costs’ ballooned to €19 million, an increase of almost €9 million on the corresponding period in 2021.
Irish Greyhound Derby Final 2022 pic.twitter.com/LRoKwaJS7C
— Sports & Betting History by BestBettingSites (@CDCHistory) September 24, 2022
The new report also shows spending on the Greyhound Care Fund increased sharply from €523,777 in 2021 to €818,038 in 2022. It explains this money is used for “a variety of initiatives for the care and welfare of greyhounds, including rehoming initiatives, greyhound injury support scheme, greyhound care centres, foster care centre, a new traceability system and other actions all designed to support the care and welfare of the racing greyhound.”
A minimum of 50 percent of all existing sponsorships is assigned to the fund. Ten percent of all admissions and restaurant packages have been given to the Care Fund since September 2019. Five percent of net tote income has also been channelled into the Care Fund since November 2019.
Welfare Wins Out
The Greyhound Care Fund came into being in August 2019 following an RTÉ Investigates program, ‘Greyhounds Running for Their Lives’. Broadcast in late June 2019, it highlighted serious welfare issues within the sport in Ireland.
GRI – then called the ‘Irish Greyhound Board’ – subsequently made a complaint to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, declaring the documentary “was neither objective or impartial and constituted an attack on the Irish greyhound industry.” The complaint was rejected before the end of the year.
Now, four years later and re-branded, the latest GRI report says that “greyhound care and welfare remains the compelling priority” for the organisation and states it “carried out a record 2,674 welfare inspections and inspections of greyhound establishments during 2022, more than double the previous record number of inspections (1,221) carried out in 2021.”
The number of GRI Welfare Officers deployed across the country now stands at 20, up from 17 in 2021. The regulator says it will “implement a zero-tolerance approach to any breaches of the regulations relating to ownership, sale, or treatment of greyhounds.”
All-in-all, 2022 was a positive year for the GRI from a greyhound racing perspective. The entire racing calendar consisted of 1,358 race meetings and 14,229 individual races. GRI’s Chief Executive, Frank Nyhan, described the year as “very much about the greyhound industry finding its feet again following a turbulent two years.”
He added: “2022 presents cause for optimism on several fronts, and the Board looks forward to working with staff and the greyhound community to explore new opportunities for the development and growth of our industry.”
