The Keep Owners in Racing Campaign Enters the Home Straight – No Sign Yet of a Proper Recovery Plan

Since 12th July, when friend and co-owner Ged Shields and I launched our Blueprint, we’ve been working very hard to apply pressure on all the various leadership groups of British racing to come up with a meaningful Racing Recovery Plan that has the right mix of radical initiatives, short-term survival strategies and urgency of action. Unfortunately, over the last month, the crisis in the sport appears to be increasingly heading towards potential catastrophe, not least because of the government’s decision only to allow racing behind closed doors, possibly for the next six months.

We’ve produced lots of blogs (four of the latest are shown below) and films, and had numerous Zoom conference calls. There is still a considerable amount of work to be done as we head into the end of our campaign on Monday 19th October. We’re no longer convinced that the BHA has the authority or credibility to drive this Recovery Plan, and you’ll see that our major recommendation is for a cross-industry task force to be established and take charge. It really is a most worrying time for the sport, and everyone whose livelihood depends on it. At least Ged and I didn’t stand on the sidelines, and we’ve “done our bit” over the last three months.

IF YOU WANT A PLAN OF ACTION – LEARN FROM A GENERAL (OR MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT)
Have you heard the bells of Peover? All will be revealed.

When Ged Shields and I launched our campaign on 12th July to make the retention and acquisition of owners the number 1 goal of a racing recovery plan, we challenged the industry to produce and implement that plan within 100 days. Fifty days out Nick Rust, CEO of the BHA, announced such a plan but unfortunately the reaction to it has been decidedly muted. While it is encouraging that at least the stakeholders have focused on a number of goals and duly published them, they don’t meet my criteria, as a former management consultant, of an effective and motivating plan of campaign to help the racing industry get back on its feet, bring in significant additional revenue, boost prize-money and do everything possible to keep owners involved in the sport. A plan needs very clear goals and objectives, well-structured and sequenced activities, specific timelines and deliverables, explicit roles, responsibilities and accountabilities and, most importantly, be designed to enthuse everyone connected to the plan so that they are highly motivated to implement it. It should galvanise proactivity with a strong sense of urgency. Anyone in a key position, when asked about a recovery plan, should be able to summarise it clearly and know their own role within it. Sadly this plan doesn’t achieve this (or at least, not yet).

General George S. Patton famously stated that: “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week”, or, if applied to racing, next month / quarter / year. There was no misunderstanding Patton’s colourful, and often profane, speeches. The one he made to the Third Army the day before the D-Day landings was immortalised in the film, Patton, starring George C. Scott, which won seven Oscars. Patton favoured strong, decisive action and commanding from the front. He wouldn’t have had much time for the wishy-washy, weasel words of racing’s leadership. Mind you, I don’t know if we need quite the level of exhortation that Patton is most famous for in his comment that: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.” Powerful stuff!

Long before my career led into consultancy, I lived up in Cheshire, not too far from Knutsford and Alderley Edge. One of my favourite pubs was The Bells of Peover, next door to a church. Many years before that, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Patton used to relax there in the evenings while masterminding the Normandy invasion. Maybe I should invite the top brass of the BHA to a planning meeting in this historic setting?

Owners – Our Sport Needs You! But Where Are the Incentives?
In the most recent Perspectives in Racing film, I became a bit carried away towards the end with the military theme that I had woven into Blog 11. This time it was to do with Lord Kitchener and the iconic and most enduring poster and finger-pointing of World War I. This hugely influential image – “Lord Kitchener Needs You” – depicted him as the Secretary of State for War, wearing the cap of a British Field Marshal. Over the decades since, it has inspired numerous imitations (and more than a few parodies).

When we published the Blueprint on 12th July, we emphasised to racing’s leadership that it was vital to do everything possible throughout Q3 / Q4 2020 to encourage owners to remain in the sport. In particular we felt that, as the main sales season progressed through to its culmination in the Tattersalls Yearling Sales at Newmarket, there would be a clear indication of the readiness of owners to reinvest, and so far they appear to be cutting back by 25%+ apart from at the very top. This is exceptionally worrying and we fear that it will deteriorate further.

In any other industry, serious attempts would be made to retain customers through various types of incentive. Any chief executive knows that it is far easier to retain customers than to acquire new ones. With owners we are talking about customers that spend £527m annually, and with the contraction that has already started, we forecast an immediate financial loss to racing of £124m but with the multiplier effect of 1:7 that means, in turn, a significantly more damaging £868m.

So where are the incentives? Has any owner received any communication from any racing body to encourage them to remain in the sport? Are you aware of reductions on any fees or charges? Does racing have a plan to reduce costs and reinvest the savings with owners? Are stallion masters going to reduce significantly the stallion fees? Are sales houses going to slash their charges? Are trainers and racecourses trying to provide any additional benefits to compensate for a sub-par raceday experience? If you are aware of any initiatives such as these, do please let me know. Unfortunately I’m not expecting too many emails.

So who will be the modern Kitchener to recruit and retain the next generation of owners? Somehow I’m not convinced on the evidence of the announcement of the Recovery Plan that Nick Rust, in his natty blue suit, is going to put fire in the belly of the ownership army. Bring on the new generals!

The Three Pillars – Not the EU or Zen Buddhism, but Our Critical Priorities for British Racing
Sean Boyce kindly invited me to take part in The Racing Debate on Sky Sports Racing last Sunday, and I concentrated on the need for an urgent focus by British Racing on three critical priorities, together with a task force based change model comprising industry leaders and influencers rather than bureaucrats. The KOIR campaign is designed to keep pressure on racing’s leadership to adopt a series of radical initiatives capable of transforming the sport’s funding in a way that makes it sustainable. Increasingly we believe a stretch goal of £250m+ p.a. of incremental revenue through a five-stream funding model should be driving the recovery plan. It also has to secure short-term financial support for the industry together with meaningful incentives for owners to stay in the sport. Finally, it is vital to persuade government and local public health officials of the need for owners and racegoers to be brought back on to the racecourse as quickly as possible through pragmatic solutions balancing economic need with public safety.

The £250m+ can be delivered through five initiatives: Levy development, phase 2 (£70m); betting innovation and international pool gambling (£100m); expansion of shared ownership (£50m); leveraging racing’s assets more effectively (£20m); and media rights pooling (TBD). In addition racing should set a £50m cost reduction target. Metrics such as these are vital to drive action, prioritisation of resources and ultimately accountability. Precisely who is responsible for the success of these initiatives?

Interestingly, when I came off the TV programme I saw in the Racing Post that both John Gosden and Mark Johnston had been similarly forceful. On Levy development, John commented: “We cannot let this drift. We don’t have six months to start floating about and having committee meetings and chitting and chatting, we need to get our heads together.” Mark, as he did in our Perspectives film, emphasised: “At the end of the day, owners accept that they are racing for poor returns in Britain, but when it gets so low and they are not getting pleasure going racing, the concern is it will focus their minds on what it is costing them.”

We’ve started to refer to the framework as “the three pillars”. You may know that the phrase has been much used, not least by the EU as it was their guiding legal framework adopted after the Treaty of Maastricht. Three columns also underpin Zen Buddhism and its view of the Tree of Life. That is not a bad metaphor to guide racing’s future.

Oliver Twist Asked for More – The Begging Bowl Comes Out Again for Sport and British Racing
There have been a number of metaphors recently about British Racing, the Recovery Plan and the funding crisis, and doubtless there will be many more over subsequent weeks. Take your pick from rudderless ships, the Titanic heading towards icebergs, baking larger pies, splitting bigger cakes and now it’s time for the magic money tree and the begging bowl. With the Prime Minister’s announcement this week of more pandemic restrictions and the disappointing news that there is a distinct possibility of no racegoers returning to British racecourses for six months, it really feels as though we’re sinking deeper into crisis. Indeed, increasingly, our view is that the Recovery Plan now has three elements within it: survival, rebuilding and then growth.

Only last weekend, during a discussion on Sky Sports Racing’s Debate, I argued that one of the three critical priorities for British racing was to bring racegoers and owners back on to the racecourses in significant numbers as soon as possible in order to stem the huge losses of income for the tracks, estimated at £300m. It is said that a week is a long time in politics, but my exhortation barely survived four days. Clearly it is a major blow, not least because such a considerable percentage of racecourse income derives from spectators and non-racing social gatherings. It is certainly at least 50% and, for some of the larger tracks, as high as 70%, which is four times greater than for a stadium sport such as football. This loss unfortunately will have a considerable knock-on effect on prize-money.

When Ged Shields and I ran a Zoom forum with MPs, we encouraged them to examine racing through the prism of a business sector making a £4bn contribution to the British economy, direct / indirect employment in excess of 80,000 jobs and a considerable ecosystem of small and medium-sized enterprises dependent on it. They responded positively and were sympathetic to supporting our sport. Following Rishi Sunak’s announcements yesterday of a new job support scheme, and the ongoing discussions that have been taking place between various sports bodies, including racing, and DCMS, it is most important that the case for additional funding for racing is positioned as part of a broader initiative led by the £250m+ of self-help projects that we have been advocating for the past month. Furthermore, rather than racing doing an Oliver Twist and asking for more on its own, it would be more effective to link closely with these bodies and to lobby government for emergency support over the next six months on a united basis.

I had to study a number of texts of Charles Dickens at school. I disliked his maudlin sentimentality and found it heavy going. Maybe I should go back and re-read Oliver Twist ….. and definitely another volume more relevant for racing, Hard Times.

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.

Half Way in the 100-Day Campaign and we Already have a Result – BHA Announces a Recovery of Racing Plan …. But There is Still a Chasm to Cross

On 12th July, Ged Shields and I launched our Blueprint for Racehorse Ownership in the UK: Making retention and acquisition of owners the number 1 goal of a racing recovery plan, and since then we’ve been lobbying all the key stakeholders across the sport to design, launch and implement one. An enormous amount of time has been spent on Zoom conference calls as well as successfully launching a micro web site, www.keepownersinracing.com, where we’re building up a bank of Zoom videos and blogs in pursuit of our cause. The whole motivation is to encourage the top table of racing to work collaboratively and kick on with urgency to launch major initiatives designed to retain owners in the sport. At the heart of that is a requirement for substantially improved funding of the sport, not least to boost prize-money and radical reform to capitalise on the opportunity presented by the pandemic. A major milestone was reached on 25th August when Nick Rust, the outgoing CEO of the BHA, announced the launch of a Recovery Plan. While this was an encouraging step forward, there is still a huge amount of work to be done and, indeed, many owners and pundits, such as the Racing Post, were less than complimentary because it seemed to be more a “plan for a plan” rather than a robust set of initiatives and actions. We’ll doubtless see the evolution of the plan through the autumn.

If you haven’t already done so, please sign up on www.keepownersinracing.com and you’ll receive all the blogs before they are publicly released. Here are four from the collection that clearly show where Ged and I are coming from.

SIGNING THE PLEDGE – AND WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT GOING TEETOTAL

At the heart of our Campaign to Keep Owners in Racing we have advocated a strongly collaborative approach to be adopted by all the leaders of British racing. Maintaining unity and common purpose is vital, but poses a considerable challenge. Racing has never been more fractured; vested interests and protectionism prevail; trust and transparency are noticeable by their absence; frustrations are building rapidly and threaten to blow strained relationships apart. The very last thing that racing needs after the damage already done by the pandemic is a self-inflicted wound of its own creation.

You only have to consider TLAs – the curse of three-letter acronyms – to understand the cat’s cradle complexity of our sport: BHA, RCA, THG, ROA, (HR)BLB, NTF, GBR, JCR, ARC, TBA, ABB, TRF, RSA, PJA. Corralling this lot is a complete nightmare and raises the question of whether it is even achievable, and whether racing needs fundamental restructuring of its governance: which we will revisit in the blog soon.

In the immediate future, Q3 / Q4 2020, our recommendation is for top leaders in the sport to produce a one-page Pledge summarising the way forward for British Racing, a statement on required collaboration and ten key actions, which all stakeholders must sign up to. Such a pledge provides much-needed vision and focus, and will be a real spur to leadership endeavour. The actions must be bold enough to enable our sport to recover from the crisis. We fear that many owners are already leaving the sport, or planning to do so, and this will cause real damage. Our call to arms is for a Racing Recovery Plan – RRP. Let’s get on with it – PDQ.

“MONEY, MONEY, MONEY” – IT’S A HORSEMEN’S WORLD

Our 100-day campaign to apply pressure on British Racing to develop a highly practical Recovery of Racing Plan broadly coincides with the first 100 days in office of the new Chairman of the Horsemen’s Group and President of the Racehorse Owners Association, Charlie Parker. Without any doubt he has the hottest seat in the sport, and we wish him well. What he achieves (or doesn’t) during Q3 / Q4, particularly on media rights transparency and apportionment, will have a huge impact on racing and ownership.

All roads, inevitably, lead back to the dire, unsustainable state of racing’s finances and the urgent need for cross-industry agreement on the most effective ways of harnessing new income streams. Without that, we all flounder. Mark Johnston, in our Perspectives in Racing film, argues that applying sticking-plaster to the problem has minimal impact and that we now need to be coming up with financial initiatives that “cross the gaping chasm”.

We believe that there is a need to generate £200m+ of annual income and that there are three principal ways of achieving that goal. Firstly, work with government at ministerial level on a second round of Levy development and reform. That was on the table in 2018 and some of racing’s leadership, for whatever reason, made a disastrous decision not to pursue it. Secondly, devise a much fairer revenue-sharing deal with the racecourses on media rights by the end of this year and then extend it into a much stronger media pooling operation. Thirdly, develop a betting strategy that targets the global gambling market through betting innovation and Tote co-mingling with other countries. And, of course, do everything possible to retain owners with the promise of more prize-money.

There is no shortage of income to be picked up – as we say, “Money, money, money”. Racing’s leadership needs to stop falling out over dividing cakes and get on with producing a radical new funding plan that bakes an altogether bigger and different one.

THE BASE OF THE PYRAMID CRUMBLES – IGNORE AT YOUR PERIL

British racing is a big industry, and at the top tier of the sport a considerable amount of money can be made. In the Blueprint we examined the profitability of all the stakeholders. In 2019, the aggregate of the top five yearling sales in England, France and Ireland made £250m for their consignors. The annual income earned from the top stallions at Coolmore, Godolphin and Juddmonte exceeded £200m. Despite all the aggressive noises being made by certain Flat trainers, the top 20 trainers in the UK make significantly more profit than the bottom 20 racecourses. It would be easy to conclude, perhaps unfairly, that the most vociferous members of the training community wish to maximise their returns even further. The platinum layer of the sport is being run by the few, for the few, with an over-concentration of income in the hands of those who don’t just make significant money every week of the year but also sit astride the downstream value chain that accrues from breeding rights.

How different it is at the bottom of the pyramid. The grass roots of our sport cover the vast majority of trainers, breeders, owners and horses. If the financial returns were terrible pre-pandemic, then they are nothing short of catastrophic now and the situation is only going to get worse. The majority of trainers and breeders are either technically insolvent or teetering on the edge of it unless they have other sources of income, and of course the vast majority of owners whose horses are running primarily at classes 4, 5 or 6 are losing on average 93p in the £ every year, with the returns not even covering the raceday costs of getting horses to the track.

These owners are spending £527m a year, to lose a collective £428m. If our forecast is correct, there will be a 20% contraction in the owner base over the next five years, which will lead to an immediate loss of £124m. But the far bigger damage is the 1:7 multiplier that leads to a much greater financial hit of £868m as the ownership contraction ripples through bloodstock, levy yield, media rights, racecourse attendance and the whole ecosystem of suppliers connected to training and racing.

Racing ignores the grass roots at its peril. This is where the contraction will be most felt, and hit hardest. We implore the leadership of the sport to produce, with urgency, a Racing Recovery Plan. Without that, the pyramid crumbles.

9-POINT RECOVERY PLAN FOR BRITISH RACING – A BIT OF A CURATE’S EGG

In the 1890s, Punch magazine ran a series of cartoons about a timid curate eating breakfast with his bishop. On being told by the bishop that he seemed to have a bad egg, the curate piped up: “Oh no, my lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!” Seems an appropriate comment for British racing’s recovery plan, which made its appearance on Tuesday 25th August.

When we launched the blueprint in mid-July we challenged the top table of racing to produce a post-pandemic recovery plan, with retention and acquisition of owners as its #1 goal. Behaviourally we wanted the stakeholders to work collaboratively, proactively and urgently on it; analytically they needed to create a comprehensive, wide-ranging, multi-faceted plan of action with two clear phases of immediate initiatives in Q3-Q4 2020, and then longer-term, more transformational change in 2021-2025; and most importantly, it had to be operationally deliverable through practical, robust, well-defined projects. It couldn’t just be about papering over the cracks – there is a chasm to cross, because the only way in which British racing can be properly sustainable is through securing at least £250m of additional income while fundamentally reforming the sport. The pandemic presents a one-off opportunity to reimagine the future and embrace the “next normal”.

That the key stakeholders, within 50 days of our challenge, have produced a recovery plan is commendable and we applaud their efforts. However, rather than a set of very practical actions, Nick Rust, outgoing CEO of the BHA, launched nine broad goals, which unfortunately disappointed a lot of owners and certainly the pundits of the Racing Post, the editor Tom Kerr being quite caustic in his comment that: “as with Coronavirus itself it is not the diagnosis but the cure that is of utmost significance. For that, the wait continues.” To be fair to the stakeholders, while the nine goals seem to be “a plan for a plan”, there will doubtless be more specific recommendations for action soon – not least the publication of the long-awaited Ownership Strategy, under development since 2017. It had better be good!

We will scrutinise these ongoing developments and fervently hope that we don’t have to echo Punch, in the final issue in 1992 before it went under, when the cartoon was updated with a considerably more emboldened curate, who replied to the bishop: “This f***ing egg’s bad!” For racing’s sake, it can’t be.

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.

Coming Out of Lockdown – The Resumption of Racing Appears to be Getting Nearer

Has anyone experienced an April like the one we’ve just been through? I was uncertain whether to start this blog with a small number of personal reflections, or to concentrate on the gravity of the situation and the grim news that we have all been encountering – lighter news prevailed, before the sombre.

We’ll all have our own personal memories of the crisis, and for me they will be triggered in future years by the five photographs. Without any doubt (subject of course to disasters!) I’m going to come out of the lockdown in a far healthier state than when I went into it. My wife and I are having an hour’s walk around the Cotswold hills every day, and the trudge back to our house is quite steep. We’ve both enjoyed watching the newborn lambs, and our local farmer amused the village by painting “NHS” on the heaviest lamb that had been born to date, and his mum.

Earlier in the month, our mare Mayfair Rock produced her first foal, and we’re all hoping that this lovely grey filly will go on to great things. She is by Gr.1-winning Havana Grey, trained by Karl Burke, and he very generously helped us with a free nomination to this stallion, who has been well supported by breeders.

It has been very interesting to see all the various forms of communication being adopted by the racing world, not least our network of trainers, studs and pre-training yards. Several of them have really risen to the challenge of keeping owners fully informed and in touch with their horses, and I particularly want to commend Claire Hart and Martin Keighley for the almost daily flow of super photos and videos. Claire is looking after Luttrell Lad, who was due to race at Stratford, but alas the meeting had to be cancelled due to the lockdown. He’s a horse we’re particularly looking forward to seeing out and he’ll run for Philip Hobbs in bumpers at the end of the summer or early in the autumn.

Many of us have been disappointed by and / or incredulous about the performance of politicians. There has often seemed to be a considerable gap between the rhetoric of what they blather on about and the reality on the ground. If that has been a frequent public criticism in the UK, it has been nothing compared to the reactions to the “Leader of the Western World”, President Trump. A new drink has even made its appearance – although one quickly expressly prohibited by all right-thinking people. No-one wants to consider a Gin & Trump made of disinfectant. Nothing is further from my mind – indeed, every Saturday my wife and I have been enjoying a top-quality wine tasting, the latest being a superb 2003 Château Léoville-Barton from St-Julien. This estate is owned by the admirable Anthony Barton, who represents the longest-standing vineyard ownership in Anglo-Irish hands. His philosophy has always been to produce top-quality Claret and sell it for a (relatively) reasonable sum. Superb.

Now back to the grim reality. As of the end of April there had been 165,000+ confirmed cases of coronavirus infections in the UK, and 26,000+ deaths in hospitals, care homes and the wider community. Apparently 1:3 who have been ill enough to be admitted to intensive care have died. It’s hard to comprehend the sadness of this, nor the amazing dedication of the NHS and the front line of care. The country has been rightly appreciative of the bravery of all these staff, and none of us will forget the accomplishment of Captain (now Honorary Colonel) Tom Moore who has raised £31m for NHS charities by walking 100 laps of his garden.

Doubtless there will be many commissions of enquiry into the preparedness of the country for dealing with this pandemic. Already several experts, with vastly more insight than I possess, have been highly critical. As one example, Richard Horton, the Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, has published a number of articles accusing ministers and their advisers of failing to scale up capacity for testing, contact tracing and intensive care, and adopting a laissez-faire response and a misguided strategy of “herd immunity”. The first paper on the existence of Covid-19 was published in The Lancet on 19th January, but the assessment within it was passed over by Whitehall. Horton’s withering accusation is that this has become “the biggest science policy failure in generations”.

There has been no racing in the UK since Taunton and Wetherby on 17th March, but very encouragingly the whole of racing has come together to work collaboratively in the Resumption of Racing Group, and it is looking increasingly likely that Flat racing will come back behind closed doors around the middle to end of May, with the return of NH racing provisionally announced for 1st July. The breadth and detail of work within this group has been impressive, as has its close liaison with government and, particularly, the Department of Culture, Media & Sport. The government has provided considerable sums of money to support businesses and many trainers have taken advantage of grants and loans. In addition the Horseracing Levy Board and the Racing Foundation have provided £22m of emergency funding to help sustain racing and its participants through the pandemic, particularly concentrating on the most vulnerable. This has been an excellent piece of self-help.

Unfortunately one major crack in the collaborative endeavour made its appearance when the frustration of trainers Ralph Beckett and Mark Johnston spilled over, with calls for the immediate departure of BHA Chief Executive, Nick Rust. The timing and tone of this outburst could not have been worse, as it is essential for racing to present a united front to government while also being sensitive to, and reflective of, public opinion. It would be potentially damaging for racing to be seen to be putting a mere sport ahead of public health and the needs of the population. Apart from this, the level of co-operation has been magnificent, although without any doubt deep divisions and factions remain within the sport. Once racing resumes, the various stakeholders will most certainly need to concentrate on an even more demanding plan – the Recovery of Racing. Achieving co-operation and consensus on that plan will be a huge challenge for the leadership of racing, which will be the theme for the next blog.

Normally the blog for 1st May would have been reflecting on the end of the NH season at Sandown, the pleasures of the Punchestown Festival and the excitement of the Guineas meeting coming up at Newmarket. Alas, not this year, but at least there is likely to be fine racing ahead, and who knows – we might see some of it in May. Stay safe and well.

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.

How Many “Bad Apples” Are There in the Bloodstock Orchard, and Will They Now be Eradicated?

Back in the autumn of 2017, I wrote several blogs about integrity and corruption in racing, which included the bloodstock supply chain and sales houses. As a result of this I was invited to take part in the investigation instigated by the BHA and led by former senior policeman Justin Felice. I met up with him and colleagues on a couple of occasions and shared with them my own experiences encountered in buying racehorses over a 15-year period. Early in August, key stakeholders in racing met for a first review of his report, which was subsequently leaked by the Racing Post. Encouragingly, many of the recommendations I made to the study have been incorporated in the report, though I must emphasise that I haven’t yet read it myself, so this blog is based on the leaks. Further stakeholder discussions are taking place through September, and as soon as I’m able to obtain a copy of the full report I’ll do another blog on the subject.

Full credit should be given to the BHA for being prepared to launch this study. They came in for a fair bit of criticism and it is true to say that there are a few vested interests who were reluctant to acknowledge that major changes are needed. Some agents, trainers, managers of studs, bloodstock vendors and syndicators are guilty of “improper practices” which, if you are generous, you would say are unscrupulous and dishonest but if not you would say are criminal breaches of their fiduciary duties towards the purchasers of bloodstock, namely owners.

Felice is damning in his analysis of the industry and, quite rightly, calls for “transformational changes”. Although there is a code of practice dating back to 2004, subsequently amended in 2009, there hasn’t been a single recorded complaint in 15 years, which only encourages a number of resisters of change to remain in a state of denial over the corruption that occurs on a significant scale. Felice acknowledges this and believes that there is omerta – a culture of silence and of impunity. Bad, and even illegal, behaviour has long been tolerated by the industry. This isn’t some sort of minor, grubby, “Del Boy”-type misdemeanour; it is endemic behaviour up to and including the elite of breeders and agents who have shamelessly ramped prices and ripped off naïve and gullible owners. Addressing this behaviour is long overdue, and the real test of successful implementation of the Felice report will be the sharpness of the teeth of enforcement practices, the number of complaints that now surface and, in time, the banning and / or criminal prosecution of some of the culprits.

Many of the “improper practices” are widely known, and include:

• Agents demanding a percentage of the sale price as totally unwarranted “luck money” from vendors. They pocket this for themselves and / or share it with the trainer. The owner knows nothing about it.
• Dual representation, where the agent is acting for both purchaser and vendor, and charges a commission to both parties. Although representing both sides of the same transaction, at least one of the parties is unaware of the fact.
• Secret profiteering, which is when the sales process is rigged through conspiratorial pre-agreed bidding up of a horse’s price. Vendors and agents conspire to inflate the price artificially above a pre-agreed amount and then split the difference between themselves.
• Running up a price where the vendor bids against a buyer, without their knowledge, to obtain a higher value for their horse.

Anyone who is acting as an “agent” for a principal, e.g. an owner, must act in the principal’s best interests, otherwise they will be in breach of agency law and legislation such as the Criminal Law Act 1977, Fraud Act 2006 and Bribery Act 2010. In the light of the extensive use of the four “improper practices” described above, it is staggering that there haven’t been any prosecutions, but Felice is well aware that collusion and coercion in the bloodstock supply chain means that there is a huge reluctance to act and, indeed, a fear that by coming forward, individuals will be victimised by the powerful players who dominate at the sales. It is encouraging, therefore, that “transformational and once in a generation” changes are being proposed, inter alia:

1. The BHA to be given jurisdiction over the currently unregulated bloodstock sector.
2. The industry to operate under a proper, tougher Code of Conduct.
3. Agents to be licensed. Those operating under such a licence will have to accept regulatory access to bank accounts if an investigation is taking place.
4. Breach of the licence will lead to an agent losing it, together with bans and removal of access to the sales.
5. Furthermore, breaches of the Rules of Racing – conduct prejudicial to horseracing – to be enforced on similar lines to the Financial Conduct Authority.
6. Payment of luck money over, say, £250 to be deemed to be an inducement, and therefore criminal.
7. Stop vendors bidding on their own horses beyond the reserves that they themselves have set. When a vendor bids beyond that reserve, the auctioneer to be required to announce it as a vendor bid.
8. Binding agreements introduced between the BHA and sales houses to enable information sharing.
9. Make it clear who is selling the horse. Sales houses to log and make public the full beneficial ownership of every horse due to be sold.
10. Harmonisation of these changes to occur in Ireland and, in time, other jurisdictions such as France.

It will be interesting to see the progress made once consultation with stakeholders has been completed, and whether the industry is prepared to put its bloodstock sales houses properly in order. Zero tolerance of corrupt practices is required. Without it, the already fragile ownership base is likely to contract further and profound damage be done to racing’s integrity and reputation. At least it is encouraging that the study was completed and that there is a readiness on the part of the BHA to publish it and act on it.

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.

New Brooms in the Leadership Cupboard, but Will We See Any Sweeping Changes?

When you look at the quality of racing at Ascot on King George day and now Glorious Goodwood, it’s very easy to feel that all is just fine and dandy in the racing stable. It isn’t, of course, and this blog flags up a few priorities for the new leaders who have recently stepped into various roles in racing and at Westminster.

But first, the racing. I was lucky enough to see Grundy beat Bustino in the King George V1 and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in the 1970s, and for my money Enable’s win, beating Crystal Ocean, is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. She has now won her last 11 races, £708,875 last Saturday and a total of £9,141,226 during her career so far. Last Sunday Karl Burke’s super filly Laurens got back on the Gr.1 trail again, winning the Prix Rothschild in Deauville. That was her sixth Gr.1 and she has now bagged £1,704,500. Then on the first day of Glorious Goodwood, my favourite horse in training, Stradivarius, added another £283,000 on to his winning tally which is now well over £2m, and of course there is probably going to be another million to come from the Weatherbys Hamilton £1m Bonus.

Wouldn’t you like to be a trainer?? The answer to that question is “absolutely not”, as it is such a tough, stressful and economically precarious way to earn a living, as the current Flat trainer statistics show. So far, 521 trainers have had runners on the Flat this season in the UK; 11 have won £1m+, 22 £½m+, and 109 in total £100k+. Now for the killer stats though – 412 (79%) have won less than £100k in total prize-money earnings; 227 (44%) less than £10k; 170 (33%) less than £5k; and 87 (17%) less than £1,000. The trainer winning percentage is 10%, so 79% of all the trainers in the country who have raced on the Flat so far have earned less than £10k. At the same time, when you consider the small amount that goes into pool money for stable staff, the returns to the vast majority of the training ranks and their staff is derisory. I genuinely believe that the greatest strategic risk to British racing is that the base of the racing pyramid crumbles.

Weatherbys Hamilton, if only you’d spent your £1m on a “Proud to Support Grass Roots Trainers and Stable Staff Stakes” series, I’d willingly switch my insurance to you. Imagine the impact of 100 races at £10k each, going into the grass roots. The impact of that would have been immeasurable compared to handing over all the money to an elite owner who doesn’t need it and wasn’t seeking it.

Who are the new broom leaders, then, and what should their priorities be? In the blog on 1st June I mentioned Annamarie Phelps, the new chair of the BHA. We also have a new CEO of the Racecourse Association, David Armstrong; Delia Bushell is taking over from Simon Bazalgette at the Jockey Club; and Rebecca Pow MP will be supervising horse racing and gambling as the new parliamentary undersecretary of state for arts, heritage and tourism at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. There are some big questions and challenging dilemmas that these individuals will need to address.

Some of the top priorities (not comprehensive and not in order of importance necessarily) should be:

#1: Funding and finances. The 1st June blog summarised the £115m of extra funding for racing that could easily be secured. Steve Harman, Annamarie Phelps’ predecessor, discussed with the government the £50m a year that could come from self-help opportunities and £65m from levy development work. I still believe that Steve’s “call to arms” for the BHA to address this as an urgent priority is right. Getting close to government is obviously a prime enabler and I hope that the right relationship is established with Ms. Pow.

#2: Media rights income. It looks as though racing is going to lose £40-60m in media rights income and, apparently, each betting shop that closes results in the sport losing £30,000. Unfortunately there is woefully inadequate transparency on this income, which has been an ongoing source of tension with the Horsemen’s Group. I can’t vouch for the figures, but it is believed that £940 of income is generated per runner, per race, with the racecourses taking most of the media rights and only a third going into prize-money. That has incensed the NTF president-designate, Ralph Beckett, who has been nothing if not vociferous with phrases such as “owners and trainers provide the show; tracks just put it on” and “racecourses and the bookies will drive the grass roots out of business”.

#3: Fixtures and racegoers. The key dilemma, at a time of declining racecourse attendance, owners and horses, is whether fixtures and the race programme should contract or expand. There has been a token reduction from 1,511 meetings in 2019 to 1,491 for 2020. David Armstrong is leading an “economic modelling project” to assess ways of squaring this particular circle. We wish him well on that one. The other big challenge is clearly with attendances, which have now fallen for three years running. The Strategy for Growth goal set three years ago was to have attendances at seven million by 2020. It was 5.77m in 2018, the average crowd per fixture is 4,000 but the median is only 1,567 and a paltry 806 on the all-weather. Thinking caps on, with this one.

#4: Welfare and integrity. Racing can hold its head high on most of the welfare front, and with the right positioning and presentation to government the level of risk (with one notable exception) is quite low. Our sport has a strong and steady licence to operate from the population at large. Integrity though is much more of an issue. I’ve often said that an investigative journalist with a hidden camera could trigger a catastrophe in our sport if three areas were closely examined: the corruption at bloodstock sales; the fate of many racehorses when they retire; and the lack of regulation of syndicates and racing clubs. A report will appear in September examining the first of these. Some potatoes are getting hotter!

I wish all the individuals mentioned the very best of success. While their in-trays are full to overflowing, positive progress on a small number of key priorities could have a huge impact on the sport. Be lucky.

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Welcome to Annamarie Phelps, New Chair of the BHA. Top of the In-Tray – Finances, Funding and the Levy. Oh Yes, and Racing’s Leadership Behaviour and the Need to Curtail the In-Fighting.

Annamarie Phelps commences her new role today as Chair of the BHA. I’m sure everyone in British Racing wishes her well and is hoping for a really successful new phase for British Racing under her stewardship. She is a former Olympic rower, current Vice-Chair of the British Olympic Association, and replaces the temporary incumbent, Athol Duncan. She is a recognised UK sports figurehead and, when she was appointed, the BHA underlined her main expertise “in dealing with complex political, regulatory and multi-stakeholder projects and initiatives” through her “impressive leadership skills and astute grasp of the issues facing major sports, including their engagement with government”.

I’m sure she doesn’t need me to teach her anything about leadership, but I’ve never forgotten the chairman of a major pharmaceutical company who raised his left hand in front of me one day in my consulting career and explained that you never need more than five fingers to prioritise the key strategies for any business. His view was that the challenge in a new chair’s first 100 days was to identify the three critical strategies that would really make a difference to the organisation, and then to drive them forward through the two main enablers of leadership and any necessary changes to the operating model. Rather menacingly, he then raised his right hand and said that over the 100 days you always discover the five leaders who are the blockers, robber barons and doom merchants. Indeed, I can still remember one hapless individual at this chairman’s leadership conference who, during a plenary discussion, announced that there was no way he was going to support a particular initiative: “over my dead body”. The chairman gave him a withering look and proclaimed, “It can be arranged!”

So I’ll be very interested indeed to follow the impact of the new chair during this initial 100-day period. I’ll be even more interested to find out whether any changes occur in the leadership of our sport. Unfortunately over the last 12 months there has been a shocking outbreak of in-fighting and negative behaviour within the top echelons. Although the chair of the BHA has limited authority over most of the stakeholder groups, there is certainly a need to knock a number of heads together and focus on the key priorities and opportunities.

Two very interesting articles appeared recently in the Racing Post, one by the former chairman of the BHA, Steve Harman, entitled Time to talk up racing’s future and kick on with levy development, and the second from trainer Jamie Osborne, Funding farce underlines urgent need for racing to conduct a radical re-think. Steve’s article was both optimistic and a notable call for action with regard to the next stage of levy development, while Jamie advocated the need to “stop the blame game and start thinking radically”. I’m sure both were designed to coincide with the arrival of the new BHA chair.

Steve’s article was persuasive and compelling. While some pundits in racing have dwelt on the “black hole” of the cut in FOBT stakes and its impact on media rights, his focus was on the need for racing to concentrate on £115m of funding that can readily be secured through self-help opportunities exceeding £50m per year and levy development worth a further £65m+. It certainly convinced me, and is definitely one of the fingers on the strategy hand. It is worth examining in more detail.

Without doubt, one of Steve’s most important contributions as BHA chair was the development of excellent relationships with the many politicians who are now key advocates of racing, both inside and close to Westminster. These include prime ministerial candidate Matt Hancock; Jeremy Wright, his successor as culture secretary; Mims Davies, Sports Minister; former Sports Minister Tracy Crouch; Helen Grant, Vice-Chair of the Conservative Party; and George Freeman, ex-Head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit. In particular, Matt Hancock had assured Steve that racing would not suffer as a result of FOBT changes, and gave a strong commitment to examine further levy development once the FOBT changes had bedded in. However, and crucially, to trigger the next stage of that development there were conditions that had to be met. In particular racing had to show self-help in a number of designated areas: building a strong global Tote, making further progress in industry recruitment and retention, further developing the equine welfare and staff welfare agenda, improving the balance of British-bred horses, pooling media rights, growing participation in the sport and meeting good governance standards.

Throughout Steve’s piece there was frustration that racing isn’t delivering on what is required to trigger further developments to the levy. It is almost as if racing doesn’t believe that Westminster will keep its word and ensure that racing doesn’t suffer financially from the changes made to FOBT stakes. The need for speed and leadership came through strongly if racing is not to stumble into a crisis of its own creation: “ …. we should be talking opportunities and growth. This industry has proved what it can do regarding levy reform. Racing needs to articulate a compelling message about growth and jobs, with great campaigning supported by quiet lobbying with our influencers.” Furthermore, “The clock has been ticking. Jobs in this industry depend on this. Anyone doubting the promises, prospects or scale of levy development needs to be corrected.”

Jamie Osborne’s concern was the lack of transparency and finger-pointing between racecourses, bookmakers, owners, horsemen and regulators. Without any doubt the financials of racing are far too opaque, and opening them up to scrutiny in a more coherent manner would be one heading in the operating model of a new racing strategy. Jamie also argued for “a radical re-think on the balance of commercial power”, which is code, I’m assuming, for scrutiny of the amount of money taken out of the sport by bookmakers and racecourses, leaving so many at the grass roots of the industry impoverished. The key message was that our funding model isn’t working well and there is a tremendous need to make the “revenue pie” bigger - another initiative for the strategy hand.

In the next blog I’ll examine a number of other priorities for British Racing, as well as the constraints that may severely limit the new chair’s freedom to act. This will also examine how the commercial value of racing is created, and the tensions that now exist in the way in which it is apportioned – definitely subjects for the left hand of strategy.

So as one former rower (indeed, having won the Mays bumping races at Cambridge and rowed for the Varsity) to another, I wish Annamarie well.

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Have You Heard About the New Ownership Strategy for British Racing? I Bet You Haven’t

Towards the end of July full details of the 2019 Fixture List were published with all the powers that be in British Racing claiming it as a great example of the tripartite structure working together well to balance the different requirements of the sport and the betting industry. A quick summary is that there will be a record 1,511 meetings next year, three more than in 2018: 951 Flat fixtures, 596 Jumps; 23% of the total will be all-weather meetings with floodlit fixtures January to April starting at 4pm (including 20 at Southwell); there will be a three-week gap between the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals. It was very easy to access and while not everyone agrees with the precedence of quantity over quality, at least it was an announcement with transparency and lots of detail. Well done to all concerned.

Unfortunately the so-called Ownership Strategy for British Racing appears to be at the other end of the scale for transparency, detail and ease of access. Indeed, has anyone actually heard of it? If you are an assiduous reader of the Racehorse Owners’ Association Annual Report 2017/18 you will have found a couple of pages on it, but it is devilish tricky to find out any more. Your diligent Owners for Owners blog writer has been sleuthing the case for almost a year now, with repeated email requests to the chief executive of the ROA, Charlie Liverton, but alas, to no avail. There is a total refusal to provide any meaningful insights or detail about the strategy, which is pretty scandalous because significant industry funds (almost £1m) have been committed to the strategy, its promotion and marketing, with the ROA as the lead body on behalf of the whole industry.

Owners for Owners has a particular interest in ownership strategy, not least because I was one of the unpaid volunteers who sat on the original strategy pillar team launched by the BHA, and spent a considerable amount of time examining ownership issues and requirements with substantial input going into the business case that proposed 1,000 extra horses in British Racing by 2020. That clearly counts for nothing with the ROA. You would have thought that my involvement in the pillar team would have guaranteed access to the latest strategy, and that is before you consider the large investment that OfO has made in bloodstock in recent years – indeed under various banners we are managing almost 30 horses in training and a substantial network of owners. Ironic that this doesn’t seem to count for anything with the ROA either. And then finally I’m on the committee of the Racehorse Syndicates Association which wants to work on an “inclusive” and “collaborative” basis with other stakeholders in British Racing to ensure that ownership strategies properly reflect the needs and demands of the ever-increasing numbers involved in syndicates. I put “inclusive” and “collaborative” in inverted commas because these are words much used across the tripartite structure of the BHA, Horsemen’s Group and Racecourse Association. With the ROA being central to the Horsemen’s Group, it is again somewhat surprising that they are not prepared to apply the same principles and values in their everyday dealings with owners whom they purport to represent.

Here is a summary of what the ROA terms their “development of a collaborative and inclusive ownership strategy for British Racing”. The ROA project highlights “the continued importance of the role of owners within racing. The strategy will give owners an enhanced brand and identity, emphasising their role as supporters of the sport in so many different ways.”

Apparently four work streams have been developed within the framework of the Ownership Strategy for British Racing:

• Retention: “the project focuses on the key elements of retention of existing owners.”
• Ownership Promotion: “investment in the development of a united identity for ownership will open the door to further simplification and streamlining of the ownership journey.”
• Trainers: “a key element of the project relating to trainers is about enhancement of the service and the improvement of information provided by trainers for owners.”
• Racecourses: “this work stream addresses owners’ racecourse experience on a number of levels. There will be a focus on creating minimum racecourse standards and assisting courses to deliver these”.

Nothing at all wrong with those four work streams. Bearing in mind that they have been described in a report dated 2017/18, then presumably all the different facets of the strategy have now been developed. What I am trying to find out are the specifics, i.e. exactly what initiatives are going to be launched, by whom, at what cost and by when, to achieve what specific goals? It is true that the ROA does flag up a number of goals, but they are far too woolly.

When I was a management consultant I was working with major companies where the problem wasn’t a lack of strategies, but too many. You would often find hundreds of strategies but scant evidence of their successful implementation. Indeed while I was working with one international bank they even had a strategy to reduce the number of strategies!! Seeing the rather comic side of this, I used to refer to “Yeti strategies” – much talked about, never seen. I do hope that isn’t the case with the one that Charlie Liverton is leading.

The intention after this blog is to approach all the leading executives across the tripartite structure, namely Steve Harman, Nick Rust, Richard Wayman, Charlie Liverton, Philip Freedman, Stephen Atkin and Rupert Arnold and see if they can help me obtain more details of the practical implications of this strategy for owners.

I’ll keep you posted through this blog!

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Does British Racing Really Want a Large Increase in the Number of Owners? A Frustrating Tale from “Lovely” Ludlow

The last few weeks have seen a number of fabulous horses sidelined with injuries. We’ve now lost Thistlecrack from the Gold Cup (as an aside, who at the Racing Post came up with the appalling headline, “Thistlecrocked”?) as well as Don Cossack, retired with recurrent tendon damage, Coneygree, plagued with all sorts of maladies, and of course the tragedy of Many Clouds collapsing and dying after his gallant win at Cheltenham. And this is on top of Faugheen’s stress fracture taking him out of the Champion Hurdle, Annie Power’s knee injury and Min’s bruising that will keep him out of the Arkle. Heartfelt commiserations to all these horses’ connections.

Many of our owners know exactly how they feel, so it’s always glorious when a horse who has been sidelined comes back, and on his reappearance puts in an absolutely belting run. He’s A Bully had been off for 450+ days with tendon tissue damage on one leg, but was superbly looked after by Polly Curling who did all the pre-training on a horse who only knows one way of moving, which is flat out at full gallop. Polly loved the challenge of teaching him to settle before he went back to Philip Hobbs for final training before coming out in a 3m handicap chase at Ludlow on 22nd February. Unfortunately, in the race prior to this, Richard Johnson aggravated a shoulder injury so we had a last-minute change of jockey with the talented claimer Ciaran Gethings taking the ride. Our horse galloped to the front after a couple of fences and then led the field a merry dance for the next 2½ miles, jumping for fun and clearly enjoying the whole experience of being back on the racetrack. Going into the last, it still looked as though he would win, but he was just run out of it by a very well-handicapped horse as HAB, not surprisingly, faded. It really was a superb performance though to come 2nd and all the owners were absolutely thrilled.

Nothing at all to dislike from this run. Unfortunately the rest of the owner experience at Ludlow left a huge amount to be desired. My wife and I drove to the course and, being unfamiliar with it, followed the Car Park signs on to the track, parked our car and went to the entrance that had a clear sign outside including the word “Owners”. It was rather odd when we went through to be greeted with the rather brusque challenge, “You’ve come to the wrong entrance”. Not the ideal start, particularly when you are on the inside of the course and to get to the “right” entrance would have meant getting back into the car, driving round the perimeter road and into another car park, a distance of about two miles apparently. However, the lady in charge of issuing badges relented and I handed over my PASS card. I wasn’t particularly amused when she immediately commented, “We don’t see many of these”, as readers of this blog will know that I’m having endless problems with the PASS scheme. Anyway, we obtained our badges and went on to the track for the first race.

Unfortunately, when we meet up with two friends for whom we’d arranged badges, they told us that they had been refused entry initially, though they had eventually persuaded the O&T official to admit them. Then we met up with a co-owner and her husband, who had also been denied a badge and had had to pay £11 to get in. This despite the fact that we had emailed the course the previous day, as advised to do in accordance with the latest PASS FAQs, setting out which owners were going to attend and how many badges should be allocated to each. The personnel at both O&T entrances denied ever having seen the email – which was doubtless true, but says little for the administrative systems at the racecourse. We therefore remonstrated with the O&T desk and were referred to the Office, where we eventually secured the return of our co-owner’s husband’s money. (He reinvested it e/w on He’s A Bully at 20/1 and was well pleased.)

My negotiations with racecourse management in their offices on track are becoming a fairly regular occurrence, and this is all primarily because the PASS system just does not work for partnerships, as readers of the blog are well aware.

Which brings me back to the title of the blog, does British racing really want to see a big increase in owners (and, of course, paying for the additional 1,000 horses by 2020 which is an explicit goal for the BHA in their Strategy for Growth)? My impression is that the industry most definitely wants the horses, the owners and their money, but I don’t think it has genuinely thought through the operational implications of how racecourses will accommodate new owners, particularly when they are in partnerships, syndicates and similar co-ownership structures.

A practical example illustrates this. Many Owners & Trainers’ lounges just cannot accommodate the number of owners. We have tracks such as Wincanton and Warwick that now restrict the number of badges they give out because the lounges are too small. This is a completely ridiculous situation. Even an idiot would say that the more obvious answer is to find or build a bigger lounge so that when you have attracted more owners to the course you can properly accommodate them.

Not surprisingly I will be revisiting this theme throughout the year. There is no point at all marketing and promoting ownership and then providing a poor, and I’m afraid on occasions declining, experience. I’ve just taken a shot at Ludlow and I think it’s only a matter of time before I do the same at other tracks that are failing to embrace the need for a better owner experience. And this of course is before we’ve even touched again on owner prize-money – which in Ludlow’s defence is one of their stronger features.

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.

The Growth Strategy for British Racing, Part 3 of 3: Many Positives, Credit where Credit’s Due, but also Some Major Areas Still to Focus On

On the eve of Royal Ascot, it’s easy for the outsider to look at our sport and believe everything is very rosy. Over the last few months we’ve had huge crowds at the Cheltenham Festival, Aintree, Newmarket, and Epsom on Derby day where they had over 120,000 attendees. Bloodstock prices at the sales are booming and sponsorship, particularly through Qipco, is injecting the highest level of investment that British racing has ever achieved. The quality and integrity of racing in Britain are by a considerable margin the best in the world, so there are many positives.

And yet as flagged up in the last two blogs, there are deep-seated problems in the sport, particularly around funding with a major dip forecast in a couple of years. When Steve Harman was appointed Chairman of the BHA, he was determined to develop a more strategic approach to racing and drive significant changes, initially around governance and leadership at the BHA. In effect the Board has now been transformed; there is a new CEO in place in Nick Rust; and relationships with Government have never been better, with a commitment to implementing the Horserace Betting Authorisation Right within this Parliament. British racing has never had a clear strategy, and credit should be given to Steve for driving through a process that encouraged all the main stakeholders to rally round, bury their differences and for the first time, “speak with one voice”. Full marks for that. The new Strategy for Growth is actively supported by Owners for Owners and we even made a contribution into one of the pillars, on ownership. Not surprisingly, therefore, we are very much in favour of the approach, although we are also prepared to argue that there are some additional areas to emphasise.

Key Targets for Growth in the Coming Years

BHA summary: increase the number of horses in training – 1,000 new horses by 2020; raise betting participation levels – up 5% by 2018; increase racecourse attendance levels – reaching 7 million by 2020; new income for the sport - £120m p.a. by 2018.

OfO appraisal: setting clear targets is a huge step forward for racing. However we would have liked to see at least two more: return on ownership at 23% (with owners losing on average 77p in the £) is abysmal compared to almost any other country in the world. The BHA should commit to improving that in a defined way between now and 2020. Also, the targets set are in effect focusing solely on increasing revenue, but like any other turnaround strategy racing should also set clear goals for cost down. Cost reduction is not mentioned at all in the Strategy for Growth. We believe that a cumulative target of £100m cost savings over five years could be achieved, with the savings reinvested into the sport. There is enormous scope for such savings in racing administration, contractual commitments between owners and trainers and standardisation of procurement.

Growth Pillar: Customer Growth

BHA summary: national survey of attitudes towards racing; consumer insight project with the involvement of all racecourses; improvement of sponsorship leverage.

OfO appraisal: it appears that racing from a spectator standpoint is going through a structural change. The average race-goer is now attracted to big events. Top race-days and those with themes such as Ladies’ Days are increasingly popular. At the same time the lower end of racing, and particularly the all-weather, has been abandoned. Terrestrial broadcasting is in decline. As an example, viewers for the Derby dropped from 4.1m in 2006 for the BBC to 1.47m on Channel 4 this year. There is a real need to improve the attractiveness and appeal of British racing. Two immediate areas require focus. The BHA needs to be given the authority to exercise centralised control over fixtures and the race programme. This will be an interesting test of the new tripartite governance structure between the BHA, the Horsemen’s Group and the racecourses. Secondly, and as a result of this, a much more holistic approach can then be adopted towards race planning, particularly based around much-needed data analysis of the preferred pattern of race-days and race types.

Growth Pillar: Horse Population, Ownership and Breeding

BHA summary: more efficient and cheaper ownership administration; easier access to syndicates to encourage new ownership; creation of wider options for colours to encourage associations with brands and clubs; improvement of the overall ownership experience.

OfO appraisal: having influenced the goal of 1,000+ additional horses in training by 2020, we are looking forward to a range of centrally-led initiatives aiming to achieve that. Similarly a dramatic simplification of ownership administration is a “quick win” – or at least it ought to be. We have a concern that because ownership administration and the cost associated with it is a revenue generator for Weatherbys and the BHA, it will suffer from a lack of urgency. While adding to the number of horses and, as a result, the number of owners is absolutely necessary, so there should be a similar focus on decreasing the churn rate and retaining owners. The Strategy for Growth doesn’t really address this issue. So for example while we can only applaud the investment at the top of the sport, there is a concern that the “ordinary owner” remains neglected, particularly in terms of prize-money. As an example, the minimum values prize-money at Class 2 level and below is far less than it was a decade ago, with place-money in particular at derisorily low levels. There is no point investing resources in bringing lots of new owners in, if racing can’t retain them.

Growth Pillar: Racing and Betting

BHA summary: “own Thursdays”; align GB and Ireland race timings and other race timing improvements; creation of a Racing & Betting Forum, key leaders from racing, betting and the media examining ways of improving participation in betting on British racing.

OfO appraisal: in many ways the ordinary punter has been a neglected stakeholder within British racing, and we applaud the commitment to engage the “voice of the gambling customer”. However from a betting innovation perspective we were very disappointed by the lack of transformational recommendations in the Strategy for Growth. Obviously the racing right, if secured, will be a huge step forward, but we felt that there should have been more insightful analysis of the opportunities presented by the decline of the on-course betting trade and the transformation of the off-course market, particularly through digital and online gaming. Furthermore, in only three years’ time the Betfred exclusive seven-year tote pool betting licence expires. There will be considerable benefits for the racing industry in acquiring that licence, and we hope that will come back on to the agenda. Finally, British racing remains undeveloped as a global betting opportunity and that needs examining in far more detail, together with the emergence of new betting platforms to capture it.

Growth Pillar: Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW)

BHA summary: create a short list of UHNW targets and identify potential assets for investment; integration of existing efforts and resources; develop a more formal relationship with UK Trade & Investment (UKTI).

OfO appraisal: one definition of a UHNW individual is that they don’t just own a company – they own a country. This area by its very nature is extremely sensitive and confidential and therefore it is not surprising that this section lacks specific detail of implementation. As has been seen, however, with the huge investment from the Middle East, securing a small number of extremely wealthy individuals can generate a massively positive impact in racing. Likely to be a prime focus for the Chairman of the BHA and we wish him well in pursuing it.

Foundation Pillar: Integrity and Regulation

BHA summary: enhanced equine anti-doping measures; rewrite the rules of racing.

OfO appraisal: obviously an essential foundation because without integrity there is no faith whatsoever in the quality of British racing. However we feel that it is time to put a number of other integrity issues properly on the table and would like to see a cross-racing investigation into the integrity of the bloodstock industry, sales houses, agents and syndicate racing managers. We all know of many rumours in this sector and there is definitely a need for greater openness, transparency and, as a minimum, “light touch” regulation through the framing of required minimum standards, codes of conduct and penalties for proven breach.

Foundation Pillar: Participant Welfare and Training

BHA summary: restructure of the sport’s welfare and training provision; integrated recruitment; injury rehabilitation; funding reform.

OfO appraisal: impossible to disagree with any aspect of this pillar. It says everything about racing that until the latest reorganisation of the BHA there was no-one at the centre in a human resources leadership role. Full marks for finally acknowledging the criticality of people, skills and capability in any change management programme.

It is clearly early days in the Strategy for Growth. We will certainly keep a close eye on developments and update our readers through this blog. Best of fortune to all those involved in implementation.

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.

An Owners for Owners Prize-Money Challenge – Step Change in Champions’ Days with the Launch of a Triple Crown and Real Collaboration Across the Racing Territories

As you know, in the last few issues of the blog I have been examining British racing’s prize-money (or rather, lack of it, in terms of its quantum). While I congratulated the Arena Racing Company (ARC) for the launch of their all-weather series, at the end of the day it is only a drop in the ocean, and it was disappointing that they have failed to sign up to a deal sharing more of their media rights money with racing. We need to double or triple the total amount of money that is being made available for owners and through them, trainers, jockeys and stable staff. I’m also more than happy to acknowledge the magnificent contribution of Qipco and the Qataris, and the way in which Ascot’s Champions’ Day has been promoted by all the authorities. People such as Charles Barnett at Ascot, David Redvers with the Qataris, together with the Great British Racing team and the BHA, have brought in individuals of real wealth who are injecting considerable sums of both cash and enthusiasm into our sport. Hats off to all of them.

In common, though, with many of our owners, most of us were at Cheltenham for Showcase Saturday (after a particularly fine “Meet the Trainer” morning, hosted by Martin and Belinda Keighley at their yard, and fortified by a heart-stopping breakfast in the Plough at Ford) rather than at Ascot for Champions’ Day. Why on earth do we have the end of the Flat clashing with the start of the Jumps? Utter nonsense. But then, with the current structure of the racing calendar, there is not a lot that the authorities can do about it.

Cheltenham as always was deeply enjoyable, although it is hard not to feel that this is a meeting that also needs to raise its game with far more prize-money. But it certainly focuses the mind on to the thrills ahead, and the dénouement of the Festival itself. I can already hear the roar before the Supreme Novices. Alas, while watching Ascot from Cheltenham, I don’t think you could ever envisage a similar roar occurring before the start of Champions’ Day. Indeed, the general consensus was that it was a fairly low-key day, with the Queen’s horse Estimate setting the tone with a most disappointing 7th place behind the Johnny Murtagh trained and ridden Royal Diamond. It is also pretty difficult to have champion sprint racing on soft ground, and Slade Power won from a seemingly weak field. Olympic Glory’s success in the QE2 Mile was a great result for Sheikh Al-Thani, and the horse obviously loved the going. But of course he had been beaten in the Prix Jacques le Marois by Moonlight Cloud.

Without any doubt though, Ascot did produce a candidate for “Race of the Season” in the 1½ mile Champion Stakes. This was Farhh’s last race, and will definitely have brought a smile to the faces of all the Godolphin connections after the torrid and controversial year they have endured – a great race, with Cirrus Des Aigles and Ruler Of The World a few heads behind.

But what really caught my eye after this race was the difference in prize-money. I thought that Treve’s performance in the Arc was the champion performance of the whole season. Simply breathtaking, and to win by 15 lengths, quite extraordinary. She won £2.25m, with superb prize-money down to 5th at £111,000. Compare that with the Champion Stakes - £300,000 to the winner and £14,000 for 5th. Says everything. Champion quality racing …… but ten times greater prize-money in France!!!

So, here is an Owners for Owners idea. Why not get all the racing authorities and the richest sponsors together and lay out a European Triple Crown? Kick it off in Ireland at the end of August / early September; move on to Ascot three or four weeks later; and then on to Longchamp for the Arc. Make it the richest sequence of racing in the world. Give the sponsors huge publicity. Tweak all the race terms so that trainers can go for at least two of the three meetings with their absolute top horses from anywhere in the world. Put massive marketing clout behind it that positions Europe in the early Autumn as the only place to be for top-quality Flat racing. Use it to capture the imagination of all the stakeholders in racing and, obviously, the general public as well as racing’s core enthusiasts. To make this work, there would need to be a transformation in collaboration and major changes in race planning. If it could be made to work, it would be absolutely magnificent.