The Tesco Approach: “Every Little Helps” – But will extending prize-money down to 6th increase frequency of running horses, and as a result, field sizes?

We received a letter recently from Ruth Quinn, Director of Racing at the BHA, informing Owners for Owners that as part of the agreement on the 53rd levy scheme, the four largest retail bookmakers (William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral and Betfred) have made additional voluntary contributions of £4.5m on top of their statutory levy payments for 2014/15. As a result, a total of £5m (the extra £0.5m coming from the Levy Board) is being injected into extending prize-money from 1st December 2014.

Basically, in some Class 2 to Class 6 races, place-money will go down to either 6th or 8th, with payments of between £200 and £400 paid on top of existing prize-money. This will ensure, in eligible races, that every horse finishing down to 8th in a Class 2 or 6th in other classes down to Class 6 will receive at least £400 or £200 in prize-money respectively.

Why is this being done? Initially, I thought it was purely for the obvious reason of providing additional prize-money for owners, and particularly providing additional reward for placed horses. As readers of the blog will know, I’ve advocated for some time that there should be much greater focus on placed horses, both in terms of prize-money and the whole owner experience, with racecourses being encouraged to acknowledge the performance of these horses even though they haven’t won or even come in the first three or four.

My second initial reaction was that while really appreciating the additional money, it is still unlikely in many instances to cover the costs of sending a horse to the racecourse. In another blog I mentioned a horse I was involved in, who ran really well at Wincanton in a 17-runner handicap to finish 4th, but where the prize-money was still only £238.50. When you consider the NH jockey fee of £161, riders’ insurance £21, entry fee of say £50, transport of c. £300, lads’ expenses of £50, racing plates at £70 plus my own costs of driving to the course and back of £50, then the total is more like £700. While enjoying the day out at Wincanton (which is one of my favourite tracks), the returns are clearly out of kilter with the costs ….. even with an additional £300 if the race was eligible for the new extension in prize-money (which it wasn’t).

So I decided to contact Ruth Quinn to seek her views. Interestingly from her replies to me it is now clear that the main logic of the extension to prize-money is actually all about trying to impact owner behaviour so that horses are run more frequently. Increasing the number of runs per horse could help significantly improve the overall competitiveness of British racing, boost field sizes and betting turnover etc.

Paul Bittar, former CEO of the BHA, was a strong advocate of owners running horses more frequently. Personally I think this is a complete non-starter, as do our trainers. Surely we all run our horses as often as makes sense for the horse, taking into account their wellbeing, suitability of going, race targets etc. Would I really encourage my trainers to run a horse more frequently, purely because there is a possibility of picking up an extra £200-400 of place-money – and equally, would they advocate the same?

Notwithstanding the point raised above that even if I did run I’d be losing money, but the horse would be unable to run for at least another three weeks. Let’s say the horse ran well and came 4th in an eligible class 4, I’m still only going to win a maximum of about £600, but with the cost of those three weeks’ training fees and all the running costs coming to, say, £1,500, I end up in an even worse position being £900 out of pocket.

If anyone can see a flaw in my logic, do please let me know! If there isn’t such a flaw, then why on earth do the racing authorities believe that owner behaviour can be influenced by such paltry amounts of money?

I’m going to be very interested indeed to see how the scheme works, and whether it does have any behavioural impact. As you can see from this note, I remain deeply sceptical and, I have to say, rather perturbed that there appears to be such a huge gap in thinking and practicalities between trainers / owners and those who want (quite rightly) to improve the competitiveness of British racing. Surely this scheme can’t be part of the solution ….. even though I always welcome every little increase in prize-money.

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