Irish horseracing industry faces ruin

10 March 1915 - Thousands of small horse breeders across Ireland will be ruined if the proposal to stop horseracing in England is spread to Ireland, according to The Sportsman.

One of the main reasons for this is that there are currently 334 registered stallions in Ireland, comprising 43% of the total number of thoroughbred stallions across the United Kingdom.

These claims was made in advance of a meeting of the Irish Horse Breeders’ Association to be held in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin next Friday at 3pm. It is expected that at this meeting, resolutions will be proposed and passed in opposition to 'the attack organised against racing in England'.

The war and racing

The proposal to abandon horseracing in England for the duration of the war has split opinion. One side argues that during the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and during the Boer War at the turn of the century, there was no abandonment of sport and there was no need now to change precedent.

Should racing be banned for the duration of the war, scenes like this will become a thing of the past - in the members' enclosure at Leopardstown, St Stephen's Day 1914. (Image: Irish Life, 1 Jan 1915. Full collection of Irish Life is available from the National Library of Ireland)

On the other hand, other commentators have argued that the current war is entirely different to any ever fought and that everything must be directed towards winning that war without distraction.

In Ireland there has already been some moves to change the culture of racing with the Kildare Street Club requesting that their members dispense with the ordinary club luncheon at Punchestown. This has traditionally been a sumptuous affair which they consider to be out of place under the prevailing conditions of war.

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]