IHRB needs to consider reputational damage to racing in grim Luke Comer Jnr case

Washing your hands of a tricky situation while also throwing them up in the air is an awkward trick to pull off even if popular opinion sometimes suggests the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board has perfected it.

But, for the sake of the regulator’s own credibility, any hands-off instincts in relation to the recent case involving trainer Luke Comer Jnr need to be resisted.

Comer, son of the billionaire businessman and trainer of the same name, appeared in Navan District Court last Friday after nine fully decomposed horse carcasses were found on his land near Dunboyne in Co Meath during an inspection by Department of Agriculture Food & Marine officials in March 2021.

The court heard it wasn’t possible to identify the remains because any traceability microchips that might have been in some or all of them were buried in the undergrowth. Comer’s barrister said his client was greatly taken aback and knew nothing about the matter but co-operated fully with the department.

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Judge Cormac Dunne said the dead bodies were “in full view” beside what was described as a forestry track, something he described as “pretty startling”.

Faced with what he called a “trapeze act” of balancing law and justice, the judge decided the public interest would be served if Comer gave a €20,000 donation to the ISPCA, paid over €3,000 in legal costs, and he struck out the charges.

Comer Jnr is no leading light among Ireland’s training ranks. He has had less than 60 runners in Ireland in the last five years. He had a single winner in 2018.

He is nevertheless licensed by the IHRB to train racehorses, with all the associated privileges and responsibilities that come with that status, which leaves the regulator facing a high-wire act of its own.

On the one hand, we have a licensee telling a court he doesn’t know how nine unidentifiable horse carcasses ended up on his property with charges subsequently being struck out by the judge. If a €20,000 donation to an animal charity felt startlingly lenient in the circumstances it was still the legal conclusion to a sorry case.

From an IHRB perspective though there is the residual reputational knock to the sport that comes from a licensed trainer having featured in such grim headlines and how best to respond to that.

When the regulator suspended Paddy Hayes’s licence for 15 months in 2022 for bringing racing into disrepute, it was on the back of a court case that found the trainer guilty of animal neglect after a thoroughbred in his care was found in an emaciated state.

Last year, the IHRB was forced into conceding a lack of transparency surrounding the circumstances in which former trainer Homer Scott quietly surrendered his licence in 2022. That was on the back of an inspection of his premises by DAFM officials which ultimately led to high-profile exposure of animal neglect.

Nothing is more damaging to racing’s social contract with the rest of the world than accusations of neglect. It is the most critical element of all animal sports that proper care and attention is paid to its central participants throughout their lives and even once those lives end. Dewy-eyed sentiment is an optional extra but professional duty of care is non-negotiable.

Every part of the racing and bloodstock industries has skin in the game of maintaining standards in a world where disquiet as to humanity’s often uneasy relationship with the animal kingdom is only going to increase more and more. When that industry basically revolves around breeding animals for entertainment purposes, the onus on standards is even greater.

The IHRB’s mission statement is to ensure that the reputation of Irish horse racing and confidence in the sport are protected by robust and transparent regulatory practices implemented with integrity by a professional and progressive team. It’s fundamentally an acknowledgment that public perception of the sport is vital.

Racing, and particularly its regulator, can’t afford to eschew its reputational responsibility when it comes to proactively finding out uncomfortable details. Comer has said he has no idea how the carcasses got on his land and knew nothing of the matter. The regulator that licenses him needs to establish for itself why not.

If it doesn’t carry out its own meaningful and thorough examination of the circumstances that prompted the scenario in which Comer eventually found himself in, then the racing public, and the wider public, is entitled to demand why not too.

It is entirely within the IHRB’s remit to look at the standards and practices carried out by its licensees and try to get to the bottom of what occurred. If it doesn’t then observers will be hard pushed to conclude that mission statement ambitions towards robust transparency smack of little more than cant.

Something for the Weekend

Betting on top-flight racing in the Middle East isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but tomorrow’s Dubai World Cup could be a glimpse of the international future with Meydan as middle ground between Europe and Japan. In particular, the intercontinental Sheema Classic clash of Auguste Rodin and Liberty Island is one to savour.

TOWER OF LONDON (12.40) gave Aidan O’Brien a first Saudi success last month despite a hampered passage in the straight. He strikes as the sort of progressive young stayer to put some grizzled stalwarts in their place in the Dubai Gold Cup.

Easter Monday’s Irish National at Fairyhouse is a very different prospect but at 25-1 MACS CHARM (5.00) might represent a touch of value in Ireland’s richest jumps race. He’s only 5lbs higher in the ratings than when winning at the festival a year ago and will relish testing ground.