Horse Racing Ireland Announce New Racehorse Ownership Department

The new department will divide its focus between owner relations and owner recruitment.

Aidan McGarry has been appointed as Owner Relations Manager, moving from his role as Racehorse Ownership Manager within Irish Thoroughbred Marketing (ITM). The ownership department will retain its close links to ITM, even though operations will transfer to its parent company HRI, under the remit of Director of Racing, Jason Morris. Aidan will liaise with current owners, both domestic and international, helping to ensure that the ownership experience in Ireland is of a consistently high standard. A significant focus will be on working with racecourses to continue improving their facilities and raceday offerings for owners.

An Owner Recruitment Manager will be employed in the coming weeks, whose role will focus on attracting new owners. In particular, the development and promotion of joint ownerships and syndicates will be a priority with various campaigns targeting new owners as well as those lapsed in recent years. Full details of this role can be found on http://www.hri.ie/work-with-hri/jobs/. Completing the new Department will be Caroline Townend who will join the team as the Ownership Administrator.

Jason Morris, HRI’s Director of Racing, commented: “Attracting and retaining owners is a major priority for HRI, and it remains one of our biggest challenges. We are making progress which is reflected in the increasing ownership figures this year, but we need to build on this. We’re very conscious of the need to improve the experience for existing owners as well as attracting new people to racehorse ownership, which is why we will have one manager dedicated to owner relations and another targeting recruitment.”