How to “segway” from Beer Consumption to Growing Racehorse Ownership in British Racing – A Further Note on the BHA’s Growth Strategy

I was delighted to read of a research study done by the Mediterranean Neurological Institute concluding that moderate daily beer consumption reduces the risk of heart and circulatory diseases by a quarter. Apparently the phenols in the flavour act as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory and also protect the body against viruses. Here in the Hawling Institute we have also concluded through even more extensive research over many years that combining this with red wine drinking guarantees receipt of a telegram from the Queen on reaching your century.

So a number of our owners put this latest finding into practice this week at York for the Dante meeting, not least celebrating a game 4th by our horse Jolievitesse on the opening day. Readers of this blog will know that I believe York Racecourse sets the bar for the total owner and racegoer experience. They are continuing to invest heavily at the track, with prize-money this year increasing to £7m despite a £200,000 decrease in levy funding. Last year they achieved record turnover and attendances. Their £60m-plus investment in facilities for horses, horsemen and racegoers over the last 20 years has paid handsome dividends. Jolievitesse’s race was only Class 4 but had a prize fund of £15,000 with £9,700 for the winner but still £721 for the 4th. The 20-runner field will have guaranteed significant betting and substantial levy contribution. It is this virtuous circle that racing is striving to achieve on a broader basis.

We weren’t however debating racing politics after this fine run, but there was a fair bit of discussion about how good the York experience is, particularly when you are staying in country hotels and dining in excellent restaurants. If you’re in the area, do visit The Crown Inn at Roecliffe. I don’t know of any course that offers such good value, with champagne at £30 a bottle and Theakston’s best bitter at £3.30 a pint, readily available in their new bar set up to offer local beers. Indeed York makes a big point of the partnerships they have developed with local suppliers of beef, smoked salmon, trout and fine cheeses from Ryedale, Wensleydale and Hambleton. I bet you feel hungry now! Courses can do a lot more to showcase local produce. Cheltenham did so at the October meeting and it was a great success.

The racing at York, as usual, was top-class, not least the superb runs by So Mi Dar in the Musidora and Wings Of Desire in the Dante. John Gosden came up with a nice comment about his now Derby favourite, that what he most enjoys is “eating and sleeping”. If you add in drinking beer and wine as well, it would cover most of the Owners for Owners network!

So York racecourse definitely demonstrates what can be done to enthuse racehorse owners. At the BHA forum I attended at Newbury on 1st March, Richard Wayman made a typically strong presentation in which he balanced discussion on the disappointing contraction in the UK ownership base (horse population down 9% from 2008; steady decline in registered owners over the same period, down 17%) and an analysis of its causation (the poor economics of ownership in the UK; a need to strengthen owner engagement; insufficient promotion of ownership, not least in syndicates; and needlessly complex ownership structures, systems and fees) with an outline of a number of practical initiatives to improve the situation.

Obviously the key to prize-money is tied in with levy replacement and capturing racing’s rightful contribution from the offshore bookmakers. I’ve covered that before in the blog, so won’t touch on it again. Richard, though, emphasised that it is not all about prize-money and stated strongly that owners must feel valued within racing, and clearly trainers and racecourses are at the heart of that. There is also apparently going to be a major innovation to streamline ownership administration from early 2017 as well as a big push on ownership, particularly with a campaign to promote syndication. There will be a central ownership hub, close liaison with racecourses and the introduction of a code of conduct for syndicates, thereby ensuring far more transparency and helping prospective owners make a more informed choice.

As this was right at the heart of why we set up Owners for Owners, we feel vindicated. Time to reflect on this with a couple of pints of Donnington’s Best Bitter in The Plough at Ford, my local watering hole just round the corner from Martin Keighley’s stables. Maybe it’s time to think about a Plough partnership.

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.

Happy Horses Make Happy Owners: But Happy Owners Also Make Happy Horses

I’ve written this blog early today, ahead of going to the BHA Forum at Newbury Racecourse today with Nick Rust and Rod Street. They are reviewing the progress on implementation of the Strategy for Growth, together with an in-depth discussion around the issues and challenges facing racing such as the progress (or otherwise) of the Accredited Betting Partner status. I’ll summarise the Forum on the next blog.

Because January and February turned out to be such wet months, we’ve had almost no horses running, but hopefully that will change very soon with better ground. My wife and I even managed to escape for a week, swinging the golf clubs in pleasantly warm Tenerife. On the flight out I read a really interesting article based on work done by psychologists at the University of Sussex who have been studying how horses react to photographs of positive and negative human facial expressions. Apparently when the horses saw photos of angry people, they looked at them more with their left eye, and their heart rates quickened. The researchers concluded that horses can definitely pick up on negativity, and that they have a “functional understanding” of the differences between happy and angry faces. Their reaction is also noticeably stronger to negative expressions than to positive ones. The researchers felt that this made sense from a survival perspective because horses need to be able to recognise any potential threats in their environment, and therefore angry faces become a warning system so that they can prepare themselves either to flee or to respond to any form of bad handling. The reason why they watch with their left eye is that the right side of the brain is used for processing such negative signs, and the eyes are linked to the opposite sides of the brain.

One of the leaders of the research, Professor Karen McComb, said that horses have adapted an “ancestral ability” for reading emotional cues in both other horses and also humans. Her research appears to confirm that the horse as a higher social species definitely has emotional awareness and apparently the research is going to look into this in much more detail now.

I don’t know why, but just reading this article made me personally feel very happy. I find that there are few things more relaxing and enjoyable than standing with a horse and bonding with it. As humans we tend to respond automatically to a happy horse, but it may also be that in turn the horse is doing the same with us. I have also noticed over the years that horses always seem to be incredibly pleased with themselves in the winner’s enclosure, and I always assumed that this is because of the satisfaction of beating the other horses. I now wonder whether it may also be that they are picking up on the delight of the owners, trainers and connections who are blissfully happy with their win.

I may have mentioned before in this blog that one of my favourite books, picked up in a second-hand bookshop in Hay-on-Wye, is entitled How to Talk to Your Horse. Over the years I’ve put this into practice. I’m now going to add “being happy” to my repertoire. As my wife is prone to saying, “Take him away, doctor ….”

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.