Fianna Fáil helped make Irish racing what it is today, yet the sector enters 2024 mystified by the perceived belligerence of Minister James Browne. In 1968, Charles J Haughey introduced a tax exemption for stallion fees in the Finance Act. It would precede Ireland becoming a racing superpower.
At the turn of the century, Charlie McCreevy, then Minister for Finance, helped mastermind the Horseracing and Greyhound fund: racing, he argued, must never be at the …