The document compares 5 horse racecourses in Ireland and the UK: Punchestown, Leopardstown, Galway, The Curragh, and Aintree. It analyzes their attendance numbers, social media presence, website design, and mobile compatibility. Key findings include Galway having the most Facebook fans, Aintree having the most Twitter followers of the group, and Galway being identified as having the best designed website. Only Aintree was found to have a dedicated mobile app.

1. Horse Racecourses
Equine Business Team

2.  The industry we reviewed
was horse racing. We
picked 5 racecourses to
compare and contrast
 Punchestown
 Leopardstown
 Galway
 The Curragh
 Aintree

3.  Breeding sector contributes over €2m to the
Irish economy
 It employs over 16,000 people
 There are 27 racecourses in the Republic of
Ireland
 Across all Irish racing festivals attendances
reached 462,938
 Total attendances at all race meeting in
Ireland reached just under 1.2m
 In comparison to race meeting attendances
in the UK that reached 6.15m

4.  Punchestown-located Naas Co. Kildare, 18 race fixtures per
annum, Punchestown festival held in April, attendance this year
reached 101,715, active on Facebook and Twitter
 Leopardstown-located Foxrock Dublin, 23 fixtures per annum,
student race day March, active on Facebook and Twitter
 Galway-located Ballybrit Galway, 12 fixtures per annum, Galway
festival August with attendance of 144,315, active on Facebook
and Twitter
 The Curragh- located in Kildare, 19 fixtures per annum, Irish Duty
Free Derby in June, active on Facebook and Twitter
 Aintree-located Liverpool UK, 6 fixtures p/a, John Smith Grand
National, active on Facebook and Twitter

5.  Punchestown- Home page well marketed,
scattered and unorganized, provided a lot of
information
 Leopardstown-attractive promotion on page,
easy to use, sign up to members club
 Galway-attractive, plenty of pictures,
extensive information
 The Curragh-poor promotion, easy to
navigate. Plenty of info
 Aintree-high quality and appealing
advertising, good media centre, substantial
info, not as easy to use as other sites

6.  Punchestown-up-to-date, receives a lot of
traffic, have over 1,430 tweets, follow 326
people, have 4,091 followers
 Leopardstown-3,175, follow 725 people, have
4,308 followers
 Galway-tweet monthly, 232 tweets, following
194, have 3,957 followers
 The Curragh-regular tweets, mentioned more
than Aintree, 2,406 tweets, following 1,923
people, have 6,136 followers
 Aintree-up-to-date tweets, 2,738 tweets,
follow 1,771, have 8,744 followers

7.  Punchestown-20,951 fans, most talked about out
of the 5 tracks, 1,633 people talking about it,
ticket booking link, video link and events link
 Leopardstown-20,368 fans, 184 people talking
about it, provide contact info and links to their
other social networks and ticketmaster link
 Galway-58,229 fans, 625 people talking about it,
few posts and no link to ticket booking
 The Curragh-8,553 fans, 210 talking about it,
post regularly, ticket booking link and contact
details
 Aintree-20,867 fans, 323 people talking about it,
not updated regularly, provide links to other
social networks

8.  Leopardstown-
Instagram, Flickr,
YouTube
 Galway-Pinterest
 Aintree-YouTube and
Flickr
 Punchestown and the
Curragh do not have
any other social
networks

9.  Punchestown - no app available, not user
friendly for smart phones, images and map
unavailable to smart phones
 Leopardstown - no app, website
accommodates smart phone users
 Galway - no app for smart phones, website
designed to suit smart phone
 The Curragh-no smart phone app, website
not smart phone friendly
 Aintree-has a mobile app, Itunes download,
main website not user friendly to smart
phones

12.  We put it into our blog
 We put it onto sociamedia.ie
 We made a video
 We put it on our social networks including
Twitter

13.  We found that:
 Galway most popular on Facebook
 Aintree has the most followers on Twitter but
the Curragh has the most out of the Irish
racecourses
 Galway posts the most blogs
 Aintree is the only track to have a mobile
app
 The best website is Galway