Executive chairman of Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL) Solomon Sharpe said his organisation is very concerned about the steady decline in the equine population at Caymanas Park and is calling on the Government to step in.

The importation fee on horses now stands at 22 per cent aggregate duty, which includes 16.5 per cent General Consumption Tax and 5.5 per cent Special Consumption Tax.

Sharpe told Jamaica Observer that the racing industry has seen a sharp decline in the horse population at Caymanas Park over the last five years. He says that they are currently operating with about 1,100 horses, which is very insufficient to the number of races that his organisation intents to run per year.

“The biggest racing jurisdiction in the world is Hong Kong and they import their horses, so we need to get on a programme where we can import say 600 animals in the next five years and racing will be perfect,” said Sharpe.

“What that does is that it produces the next set of fillies who will become meres and it allows us to run more races,” he said.

“Based on the population, we are borderline running 89 races a year, and if you can increase the population from 1,100 horses up to 1,500 or 1,600 horses, then you can run 100 to 108 races per year.

“If you run a 108 races per year, which is an average of nine per month, it gives all the horsemen an opportunity to earn more because nobody earns unless there is a race,” he said.

Sharpe also said that the average cost to purchase a horse in the United States is US$15,000 or $1.5 million, and according to him, that sum also attracts an additional $31,000 in taxes.

He pointed out that if these fees are waived by the Government, then he is confident that a lot more owners and breeders will return to the racing industry.

“It has to be a tripartite agreement because if the Government were to relax the imported measures, then there will be a lot more horses coming in and there will be a lot more benefits after these horses are imported,” Sharpe said.

“Remember immediately when these horses are imported, they provide more employment and there will be more money that is circulated in the economy for everyone.

“We have put our money where our mouth is and we have imported five two-year-old horses and based on all reports coming out of their trainers, they are training well so if those horses train on that is actually what we need to create a better environment here,” he said.

Patrick Smeille, president of the United Racehorse Trainers Association of Jamaica (URTAJ), is also calling on the Government to remove the importation tax on horses.

“We need to import some more horses in the country, and we need the breeding industry to step up to the plate,” said Smeille.

“If you look at the yearling sale, we are not having the numbers and the quantity is not where it was five years ago,” he said.

“We need a first injection of about 200 to 300 horses, but what is ideally needed in my mind is about 400 hundred more horses,” Smeillie noted.