ABSTRACT
Jumping is so much more popular than Flat racing that the Irish racing authorities have to include jumping races at Flat meetings in order to pull in the crowds. But this is more than just a matter of simple preference for one type of sport over another: the whole culture of Irish racing is infused with the values, norms and attitudes of the jumping clan -including this clan's ingrained prejudices against the Flat clan. The Irish lack of squeamishness about financial matters is evident in speech as well as signage. Both the official 'ambassadors' and the ordinary natives talked about Irish racing with an almost evangelistic zeal, and indeed several claimed that horse racing was 'a religion' in Ireland. The Catholic Church in Ireland seems thus to have achieved what in management jargon would be called a 'win-win situation' in its relationship with horse racing.
