Harold Macmillan Said that Governments were Brought Down by “Events, dear boy, events”. Racing has had Two Big Events in February – Fast and Furious Response to Equine Flu and Now The Beckett Boycott Against ARC. Are They Appropriate Responses or Over-Reactions?

If I ever take part in a pub quiz on racing (which is extremely unlikely), at least I’d be able to ask the question which was “Which National Hunt horse won the first race back after the great equine flu epidemic – which didn’t happen – of February 2019?” Easy, really – it was our horse Acey Milan, who won over an inadequate trip at Plumpton on 13th February. Well done, Ace!

Either side of the weekend of 9th and 10th February, British racing had introduced a six-day lockdown of 174 yards following the discovery of a US strain of equine flu at the yard of Donald McCain in Cheshire. A fast and furious wave of biosecurity activity took place as thousands of horses were tested for this highly contagious virus. No racing took place in the UK; yards were disinfected, either through low-tech spraying or high-tech fogging machines; horse movements were curtailed; and an enormous range of views expressed. A number of trainers, such as Charlie Mann, Nigel Twiston-Davies and Nick Williams, became very hot under the collar, saying that it was a “massive over-reaction” by the BHA and not even the vets seemed able to agree on the appropriateness of the lockdown and various measures. The Veterinary Committee of the BHA played a straight bat and were highly supportive, whereas some of the grass-roots practitioners such as Peter Ramzan of Rossdales in Newmarket and Ben Brain, the UK’s foremost wind surgeon, were very sceptical. After six days and a huge amount of coverage in the media, racing resumed and fortunately only a total of ten racehorses tested positive. Normal service was resumed – other than for the trainers who had not had their animals vaccinated in the past six months. This caused some resentment, as it meant that some top-class horses missed their Cheltenham preparatory races, and because there was no grace period, the BHA had in effect changed the vaccination rule overnight. In their defence, they had issued an “advisory” notice about vaccination earlier.

My personal view is that one of the BHA’s primary objectives is properly to protect racing’s future, and one key element of that has to be equine welfare. The horse must genuinely come first. Without the extensive testing of horses in the lockdown period, it would have been impossible to gauge whether the UK was on the verge of an epidemic; fortunately that was not the case, but imagine the public outcry if we had been. It may well be that a very small number of horses always get equine flu, but it goes undetected or unreported. The whole episode certainly demonstrated that “racing matters” in the eyes of the public, and not just for racegoers and punters. A lot of column inches were dedicated to the equine flu cases in all the newspapers, as well as extensive reporting on TV. The general consensus seemed to be that temporary inconvenience through the lockdown was far better than having an epidemic on your hands. The BHA took the right steps to contain it even if, with hindsight, it might have contained itself.

And then at the end of February another “event” broke out, this time a major row over prize-money as a result of ARC’s precipitate decision to cut its prize-money allocation by £2.7m while, through its actions, excluding itself from accessing a further £4.5m from the Levy Board through the Appearance Money Scheme. The last time there had been a boycott of racing was at Worcester a few years ago, when trainers withdrew all their horses with the exception of one, who had a walk-over for Nigel Twiston-Davies who then allocated the prize-money between all other trainers in the “race”. This time the President-Elect of the National Trainers’ Federation, Ralph Beckett, orchestrated an aggressive response to ARC with the withdrawal of horses in a couple of novice races at Lingfield before proposing a second wave attack with trainers being persuaded not to make entries at Fontwell, Lingfield, Newcastle and Southwell next week. Anyone who saw Ralph being interviewed by Nick Luck last Sunday could not have failed to be impressed by his cogent attack on ARC and his barely concealed anger. It was definitely a case of Bombardier Beckett in the trenches with the pins out of the grenades, ready, willing and able to go over the top on behalf of racing, and particularly the grass-roots owner.

I have every sympathy with the stance being taken by the NTF and indeed had instructed all the Owners for Owners trainers not to enter our horses in any races where the total prize-money is less than £4,000, unless there is a compelling reason to do so. I’ve just ensured that our horse Sojourn is withdrawn from Fontwell next week and will race at Wincanton instead, while Melekhov also won’t go to Fontwell but be switched to Taunton. When these decisions were made, the prize-money was over 50% higher at the non-ARC tracks. Since then, ARC has made what appears to be a “concession” by temporarily reassigning prize-money from more valuable races to those of lower grade, thereby unlocking levy funding. This doesn’t strike me as much of a concession, as no new money is being found; it’s just a different way of slicing the prize-money cake.

Direct action, boycotts, aggressive attacks on fellow stakeholders isn’t really the way to manage British Racing, and it’s really necessary for the current tripartite structure to contain the aggression and re-channel it on to problem-solving and solutions. The macro-economic reality is that while no-one knows the precise figures, the government’s decision to reduce the stakes on fixed-odds betting terminals to £2 is guaranteed to lead to the closure of a substantial number of betting shops thereby significantly reducing levy yields and media rights payments. Some commentators believe that £40-60m of annual income could be lost, which puts the ARC reductions into perspective. Racing, as a matter of urgency, needs to create a strategic plan of how it is going to boost income from the middle of this year onwards, or a lot more grenades are going to be thrown around.

Harold Macmillan would surely have identified with the way that “events” can blow up in your face, just like grenades.

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From the Ridiculous to the Sublime: The Racecourse Experience at Worcester, Bangor and Royal Ascot

On average I go racing twice a week, so around 100 times a year. Indeed many people like me, who organise partnerships or syndicates, probably see more variety of racecourses, Owners & Trainers facilities and the overall racecourse experience than almost anyone other than jockeys and trainers. However, because trainers by and large are far better looked after and treated than owners, our insights are probably much nearer the reality of British racing. Indeed the Racehorse Syndicates Association (RSA) has been lobbying for more input into the corridors of power on this subject, but so far have been cold-shouldered by bodies such as the Racehorse Owners Association (ROA), which is a real pity.

Anyway, over the last six weeks, three experiences have stood out: one terrible, two excellent.

First the terrible one. On 2nd June, Worcester staged its annual Ladies’ Day, with a huge crowd of over 10,000. Unfortunately the result was that temporary Owners & Trainers facilities had to be used and there was an outcry from such trainers as Alan King, Warren Greatrex and Paul Nicholls. Owners described it as the “worst track they’d ever attended”. This is a real pity, because the track itself is a fair, flat, galloping one which I like a lot, and indeed on the day our horse, Dr Dunraven, lost his maiden tag, winning a 2m handicap chase. It’s not really the fault though of the local management. Jenny Cheshire, who heads their marketing, does a fantastic job and is always incredibly helpful. The bottom line is that the owners of the track, ARC, desperately need to make significant capital investment. At the moment the Worcester owner experience is so dire that it is dissuading owners from going. A recent survey showed that 44% of owners who leave British racing do so because of the poor raceday experience. If they all went to Worcester regularly we’d have no owners left.

So on to a much better one: Bangor. The ROA does a jumps racecourse league table based on prize-money, and in that Bangor is very lowly at 39th of 41 tracks (Worcester is 34th). So you might think that Bangor is a course that owners wouldn’t like. When I went there recently I couldn’t help but notice that it is punching massively above its weight. They have recently built a brand-new Owners & Trainers room that provided a sumptuous buffet with complimentary wine for owners. There may be no stands, with viewing being from a bank at the side of the track, but all the owners I spoke to could not have been more complimentary. It just shows what inspired leadership can achieve, even at one of the lesser tracks. I’ve always subscribed to the adage that “Ships sink from the Bridge”, and with the excellent management of Chester and Bangor, these ships are definitely full steam ahead. Bravo, Bangor.

Then the third one, which is an obvious selection, being Royal Ascot. Having studied the style guide, ensured that there were no missing socks or naked shoulders, my wife and I were duly togged up for the Royal Enclosure and had the most magnificent time on one of the best days of the Flat season, Day 1 of the meeting. Admittedly we were being wined and dined in a private box, but the whole occasion was British racing at its absolute best. No complaints over prize-money at over £7.3m during the week, and I gather that there were over 300,000 spectators. The attention to detail was the best I’ve ever seen on a racecourse – not just for humans but also for the equine stars. As an example I was really impressed by the misting machines that the horses could stand by in the unsaddling area to cool down.

Encouragingly, as far I could see, there were no problems with crowd violence, although it was strange to observe sniffer dogs trying to find drugs, amnesty boxes and breathalysers at turnstiles in case anyone showed (in lovely Ascot phraseology) “overt signs of inebriation”. Apparently there were more than 100 extra security staff.

A few highlights of the meeting for me were:

• Accidental Agent: really magnificent to see this winner for Eve Johnson Houghton and her mother, Gaie, in the Queen Anne. It was Eve’s first success at Royal Ascot and it was an extremely emotional one. She said that “you’ll have to man the lifeboats” to escape all her tears. The horse was named after her maternal grandfather, John Goldsmith, who was a member of the Special Operations Executive in the Second World War. The horse was bred by Gaie, but led out of Tattersalls Book 2 in 2015 unsold at 8,000 guineas. This gives hope to all of us!


• Calyx: won a really strong edition of the Coventry over 6f, and in the process became the market leader for the 2000 Guineas next year. Talk about a chip off the old block – he was the spitting image of his dad, Kingman.


• Stradivarius: the Gold Cup has always been one of my favourite races of the season, and this was a vintage finish with three horses battling it out right to the line. Exhilarating. The horse is on track to land the £1m bonus designed to encourage the owning and breeding of stayers. All he has to do (?!?) is win the Qatar Goodwood Cup and then the Weatherbys Hamilton Lonsdale Cup at York. Who knows, he might even go to Australia for the Melbourne Cup in November.


• Landmark successes: everyone seemed delighted for Sir Michael Stoute to record 76 winners on the first day, beating Sir Henry Cecil’s record. Both Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore passed significant milestones with 60 and 50 Royal Ascot winners respectively.


• Startling moments: two horses, Vintage Brut and Main Street, each only beat one horse home in their respective races at the meeting. Incredibly they had changed hands at the Goffs Ascot sale on Monday night for £280,000 and £300,000. The buyer was Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, the Chairman of Leicester City. He actually spent considerably more than that and was well into seven figures. The phrase “more money than sense” comes to mind.

The day-to-day fare of grass-roots racing will seem something of an anticlimax for a few weeks.

I am always interested to hear your views so please do leave a comment. If you can't see the comment box at the bottom of this post then navigate to the post using the right hand navigation or click here > and scroll to the bottom of the page. Look forward to hearing your views. Thanks very much for sharing them.