David Skelly | Horse Racing Free Tips

It is commonly known as the junior wing of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association, aimed at educating students and aspiring breeders, and its chairperson Orla Donworth is predicting big things for the ITBA Next Generation in 2023.

Donworth is a digital marketing executive at Goffs who has been employed in the industry for 10 years and outlined plans for the ITBA Next Generation to become the go-to place for the future leaders of the industry to gain education and support.

Fellow Goffs employee Conor Wixted holds the position as the vice chairperson on the committee while Taragh Brady, marketing executive at Tattersalls Ireland, Padraic Gahan of Baroda Stud, Yeomanstown Stud's Rob O'Callaghan and Clare Manning of Boherguy Stud feature among the committee.

Donworth, 30, explained, “After a period of inactivity during Covid, the ITBA Next Generation was revived. I have taken over as the new chairperson and we have a 12-strong committee. We have a good mixture of people on the committee, from Flat and National Hunt, breeding and racing, farm managers, students, and people who work for Goffs, Tattersalls, Wetherbys and a Flying Start graduate as well. It's a well-rounded committee. The vice chairperson is Conor Wixted, who is extremely proactive, and the main thing for us going forward is to drive membership and grow the ITBA Next Generation in 2023.”

She added, “The ITBA is the governing body of Irish breeding at government level at home and abroad and the Next Generation is the junior wing of that organisation. The people we can get into the Next Generation are the future of our industry and we will try to nurture people to one day be on the senior council. We will endeavor to represent, support and educate young and future breeders.”

Committee member David Skelly, who is a graduate of the Godolphin Flying Start programme and now works full-time for Peter Molony at Rathmore Stud, shares Donworth's passion for the sport and explains how he aims to implement what he learned as president of the horse racing society at Limerick University to his role.

The 27-year-old said, “What I learned from setting up the horse racing society in the University of Limerick is that there is a huge appetite for the sport among young people and that they are especially keen to meet the people who are involved in the industry. Mark Boylan and I rejuvenated the society, which had been inactive for a number of years, and it really opened our eyes as to how popular racing is among younger people.”

Skelly added, “We were very lucky to have a group of roughly 40 people who were extremely keen to go on visits to racing yards, studs or to the racetrack, and it was great to have that network of like-minded friends in the industry. The goal is to try and replicate that but on a bigger scale with the ITBA Next Generation. The level of access in racing is incredible. To be able to visit a stud farm or a racing yard and meet what are essentially the celebrities of our sport is not something many industries have the luxury of. Hopefully we can capitalise on that in the new year and drive membership further.”

The wheels have already been set in motion. A pinhooking seminar went down a bomb in November and Donworth is keen to use that event as a springboard for the new year.

She said, “We had a fantastic panel of pinhookers, made up of Guy O'Callaghan, Vikki Hancock, John Hanley and Timmy Hillman, with Bernard Condron as the master of ceremonies. Over 100 people turned up on the evening and it was a fantastic event with huge interaction between the panel and the crowd.

“It was a well-timed event, too, with a number of young people going on to get involved with pinhooking foals in the following weeks. We also had a great prize, which was a free entry into any yearling sale at Goffs or Tattersalls in 2023 for anyone who pinhooked a foal this year.”

She added, “There is a great cohort of young people and our job is to support that younger generation and provide education and networking opportunities. Our events will be a mixture of social and educational in 2023. The pinhooking panel really put us on the map and we gained a lot of traction on social media from it.

“We're hoping to build on that in 2023, with our first event planned a trip to Coolmore Stud and Castlehyde Stud, and we're looking forward to being the first group to see Blackbeard (Ire). People are registering for that event now and the feedback has been very positive. The plan is to stage roughly six events next year.

“A number of leading stakeholders have been a huge help to us, including Coolmore Stud who are sponsoring that entire trip in the new year, which is hugely appreciated by all of the members. Coolmore's Gerry Aherne, Christy Grassick and Maurice Molony are on the senior council of the ITBA and it's very encouraging that they recognise the importance of the Next Generation.”

Along with educational seminars, Skelly revealed that he would like to help organise more trips to the races and floated the idea of creating a hub at certain racetracks for ITBA Next Generation members where they can network and learn from like-minded people.

He said, “There will be plenty of opportunities in the second half of the year to hold seminars at the sales because everyone will be at the same place and it seems to work well. We could look at having stable visits or potentially some trips to the races in the first half of the year. You have the Dublin Racing Festival, the Punchestown Festival and plenty of good meetings at the Curragh, so I could imagine us organising trips to the races. I'd love to see us have a Next Generation hub in a hospitality box where members can come and network during racing.”

He added, “The one thing I would say is that the Next Generation is made up of a broad spectrum of young people within the industry. That's good in a sense that we all come from different backgrounds and share different connections within the industry.

“Also, as our chairperson, Orla was invited to the ITBA council meeting this year. For the young people of the industry, the future, to have a voice at that level is great. I think that's very important. We care about the future of racing and want to see people going racing in the future.”

The post ‘We Want To Drive Membership To The ITBA Next Generation in 2023’ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Attracting a young, more diverse audience to horse racing is essential to the long-term health of the sport. It is often asked what can be done to make racing more appealing to a younger population, yet one has to wonder if the product that’s offered caters to them. The introduction of sectional times would undoubtedly be a huge stepping stone in combating this irrefutable lack of appeal. By the same token, it’s far from certain that Irish and British racing attracts the level of international interest that we have come to believe. The lack of data available relative to other racing jurisdictions puts it at a competitive disadvantage. Ireland and Great Britain produce the best Thoroughbreds, however, it is hard to say the best resources are being utilised to showcase them.

In the case of horse racing, the more information available the better. Sectional times won’t be used by everyone, however, the sport must move with the times and become more accessible, and an increase in information and transparency will undoubtedly assist in this. Over the last 10 years, sports that cater to a data-driven population such as baseball, American football and Formula 1 have become increasingly popular. Even in the last fortnight, golf’s ‘Mad Scientist’ Bryson DeChambeau recorded his first major victory by winning the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Bryson, whose statistical focus on the game has left traditionalists with a sour taste in their mouth, has been very vocal in the analytics of his golf swing, as well as his assessment of the different variables that are presented during a round of golf. Love him or hate him, there’s no doubting that he won’t be the last to adopt this ‘winning formula.’

Around this time last year in the run-up to the Cox Plate, an Australian friend of mine posed a question to me I was half expecting and dreading. “Winx vs. Enable, Cox Plate, 2040 metres around Moonee Valley: who wins?” Having to tell an Aussie that I thought his country’s pride and joy wouldn’t have what it takes to run down Enable–brilliant. As expected, my answer was met with an onslaught of abuse, telling me how Enable wouldn’t have the tactical speed that’s required around The Valley, that I don’t have the figures to back up my choice and that she’d have never raced around a track as sharp before. Rather than a shaky counterargument which would have consisted of pointing out that Enable had won at Chester, my response of “Enable just wins” seemed to have more substance and duly went down like a lead balloon.

Pardon the digression. The underlying point here is that the apparent high regard Irish and British horses are held in abroad is based on anecdotal evidence. If Nature Strip had come over for the G1 King’s Stand S. this season, would it have been easy for Australian racing fans to weigh up their star sprinter’s chance versus Battaash? Unlikely. It makes it extremely difficult for International racing fans who don’t follow Irish and British racing closely to quantify a horse’s chance in such situations, thus leading to them losing interest.

In 2017, sectional times were due to be introduced to Irish racecourses as part of a deal struck between HRI and SIS. The sport’s sectional times advocates have been kept at bay for a long time by what seem to be never-ending trials of the technology, yet as time goes on one has to wonder if the promises made are empty. There have been questions asked over the relevance of sectional times in Ireland and the UK given the unique nature of the tracks relative to those in other jurisdictions, but surely this distinctiveness is precisely the reason sectionals should be introduced. There is no doubt that the sectionals from track to track won’t be corresponding; this isn’t an advocation of sectionals so we can compare six-furlong splits between Leopardstown and Ballinrobe. However, I believe the information could be used to compose homogenous sectionals for each furlong once a dataset large enough for each track has been derived. The resulting figures would be fascinating for racing fans and punters in terms of exposing uphill and downhill parts of a track, tracks where tactical speed in a specific part of a race is necessary, as well as making informed conclusions in the aftermath of the race.

The information would also be useful for horse racing professionals. It could assist trainers in their post-race analysis and future placing, act as an added awareness for riders with regards to setting pace, as well as assisting in handicapping, stewarding and improving the overall integrity of the sport. Not the toughest sell, is it?

‘Punter’s Intelligence’ is an extremely popular sectional software used in Australia. Run by Racing New South Wales, the race data is presented through a free app, making it available for smartphone and tablet users. Performance data is collected 50 times per second through transmitters in the horse’s saddle cloth, which is then collated and presented in the app to show race times, sectional times, distance travelled, top speed and positioning for every horse in the race. The app also allows its users to view a 3D simulated or virtual replay of the race and control camera angles. For all they only offer sectionals for a handful of British tracks, At The Races has set a very high standard with regards to the information provided and how it is presented. The ‘Using the ATR Sectional Times’ section of their website provides you with the various analysis tools, as well as how to use and comprehend them. Energy distribution charts, sectional speeds, efficiency grade and finishing speed % are included on the site. The user-friendly nature in which At The Races presents the information also deserves praise. Analysing sectionals can seem a daunting task, but At The Races has done a great job of simplifying the process, using pace corresponding colours, race position buzzwords and finishing speeds to great effect. Products like this make the sport far more appealing to those who are data-driven. They eliminate the guesswork of what happened and why. They allow justified conclusions to be made and in doing so, eliminate a barrier of entry in the form of ‘being in the know.’

The introduction of the Tote Superpools in the last two years has greatly increased international interest in Royal Ascot. Throughout the 36 races this year, £137-million was wagered in the pools, with substantial amounts coming from Hong Kong, Australia and the U.S., compared to £20-million in 2018 prior to the World Pools being introduced. Sectional times have been provided with these pools in mind and are paramount to them remaining popular as sectionals are the minimum standards expected in the aforementioned jurisdictions. The Superpools haven’t become as regular as people had hoped when they were first pitched in 2018. Were sectional times universally in place, perhaps it would allow for greater expansion of the Superpools which would be monumental with regards to the international interest of Irish and British race meetings.

If you were a racing fan abroad, would you be willing to dedicate your time to following Irish and British racing without the necessary tools to comprehend the form? Does a sport which lacks data and requires a huge investment of time to gain a basic understanding of appeal to the younger generation?

Sectional times could be essential in the battle to gain market share from other sports with data-driven audiences. The opportunity cost of failing to move with the times and attract new racing fans is colossal. Time is very much of the essence.

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