We’ve Had the NH Trainers’ Owners’ Days – So Proper Racing is About to Start

For enthusiastic National Hunt owners, September is usually all about attending the elaborate owners’ days put on by the vast majority of National Hunt trainers. Not many Flat trainers do this, as it is pretty challenging to organise a parade of skittish yearlings or 2yos, but it is an enjoyable feature of the National Hunt world which owners really look forward to. As we’ve gone through September all our NH trainers have had these days, so a special thank-you to Messrs. Hobbs, Honeyball, Keighley, Longsdon and Snowden, and also their wives, assistant trainers, secretaries, head grooms and all the staff and helpers. Oh yes – and the horses.

An immense amount of work goes into these owners’ days, and they can come with a not inconsiderable cost. Yard improvements that have been under way over the summer have to be completed; boxes scrubbed clean and repainted; invitations sent out; brochures written and printed; marquees assembled and various purveyors of plentiful food and wine contracted for the day. Stress levels and blood pressure inevitably rise as a million and one last-minute things have to be done. But it’s definitely worthwhile, with a huge amount of goodwill engendered and a really strong sense of yard identity fostered.

It is interesting how the format of the owners’ day can vary between trainers. Philip organised a formal lunch in a marquee with horses not paraded (unless the owners requested this), but a full commentary provided by Philip, Richard Johnson, Johnson White and Mick Fitzgerald. Anthony held his event inside his enormous indoor school from mid/late afternoon, with a plentiful supply of top-quality canapes and cakes, champagne and wine. Martin paraded all his horses and then cantered them around his brand-new, state-of-the-art, two-furlong carpet loop before the owners demolished a hog roast and a prodigious amount of soft drinks, Pilsner lager and wine (served by the author of this blog, with enthusiasm if not a particularly great amount of skill). Charlie organised a mid-morning gourmet brunch for owners, followed by a parade of horses. He was also brave enough to school a number of horses. The parade and schooling were also open to the general public, proving very popular, with several hundred non-owners turning up. Finally Jamie had a parade of horses with the commentary supported by the amusing Richard Pitman, followed by a Thai-themed lunch and bar. Great variety in timings, formats, food and drink, but a strong common denominator of lots of enjoyment.

Everyone in British Racing talks about the need to “maximise the owner experience” as a prime means of attracting new owners into the sport and retaining the current ones. For me, the organisation by trainers of owners’ days is one of the greatest contributions to helping owners really enjoy the sport. It’s very interesting listening to the trainers’ comments on their various horses; the hopes and dreams that we all have at this stage of the year are firmly alive, with so much to look forward to; and it is one of the few opportunities where owners can meet and network with all the other owners, friends and families associated with the yard.

Despite the cost and the considerable workload, long may our NH trainers continue with these enjoyable events. Many thanks to everyone concerned, and may all the yards I have mentioned have a tremendously successful season – not least with our Owners for Owners horses.

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On Apprentices, their Earnings and Expenses: Speaking Up for Both Trainers and Trainees in an Unfortunate Public Disagreement, Stirred up by the Racing Post

Two personal observations before getting into the debate on apprentices, their earnings and expenses. It’s very noticeable that all the Owners for Owners trainers – Karl Burke, Philip Hobbs, Anthony Honeyball, Martin Keighley, Charlie Longsdon and Jamie Snowden – are not just great trainers of horses but great trainers of people as well, whether their riding staff, conditionals or apprentices. They have helped many a young rider get on to the ladder and then go right to the top. I hadn’t really thought about this before, but it is all part of their ethos and approach, which is why they are training our horses. The second observation only happened yesterday, when one of our trainers shook hands with a youngster who is going to join the yard as a 7lb claimer, obviously able to claim 10lbs on occasion when he rides for the yard. What really impressed though was the look of real pleasure on the faces of both of them. The lad has ridden out at the yard and can’t wait to join the team, all of whom like him, so he will fit in well and is a really hard worker. The yard has a number of top riders working for them as well as an excellent jockey coach, so the lad is bound to get a tremendous amount of help, support and encouragement. The trainer involved knows what a good young rider he is taking on, and has already had excellent feedback from owners who are keen for him to ride their horse whenever appropriate. A classic win-win, and great to see.

However, Lee Mottershead triggered an unpleasant spat when he wrote an accusatory article in the Racing Post on 10th July pointing out: “the scandal involving Flat trainers knowingly exploiting apprentices attached to their yards”, which he saw as “a pretty appalling state of affairs”. Paul Struthers, CEO of the Professional Jockeys Association, strongly backed Mr. Mottershead, stating that “too many Flat trainers, and almost certainly the majority, are happy to take a share of their apprentice’s earnings …. without paying the expenses that the Rules of Racing require” (my italics). No-one was named, and Mr. Struthers indicated that the force of his statement was based on “anecdotal evidence”.

Hardly surprisingly, a number of trainers were upset by all of this, notably Richard Hannon, Andrew Balding and Karl Burke. I know the operation at Karl’s extremely well, and have had a lot of his young riders on board our horses over the years, often with great success. Indeed only last year, Clifford Lee (who was flagged up in the Racing Post articles because of his excellent and valuable winning ride for David Barron on Above The Rest in the Bunbury Cup) rode both Timeless Art and the late, lamented Lord Ben Stack to victory. Karl wrote a very detailed response that was published in the paper, and I heartily agree with the sentiments he expressed, not least that “trainers use (apprentices and conditionals) because of the value of their claim, not any financial gain (to the trainer). That is secondary.”

So what is the position, and the rights and wrongs of the current arrangement? Trainers pay the apprentice wages and reimburse them for equipment together with half their expenses while their allowance is at 7lbs or 5lbs including 22.5p per mile driven. There are clearly costs involved in training them, and as they become more experienced and take on external rides, they are not available to work for the trainer even though they are still being paid. In exchange, Flat trainers take a share of the apprentice’s earnings: 50% of any prize-money and between 50% and 20% of their riding fee, depending on their claim.

That system clearly can work well, provided that the trainer who receives the percentages of the apprentice’s earnings is properly paying the expenses. Messrs. Mottershead and Struthers assert that this is not the case, although no evidence was presented and there was no “naming and shaming”.

Personally, I would have thought that this whole issue could be resolved very quickly by a BHA working party to bring together the National Trainers Federation and the Professional Jockeys Association with a clear remit to “examine the nature and working practice of the training and commercial relationship between trainers and apprentices / conditional riders and, where appropriate, thoroughly modernise that relationship so that it demonstrably works well for both parties while encouraging young people to enter and remain in the sport”.

Doubtless there are some trainers who are exploiting the relationship and where the apprentices involved are too frightened to do anything about it for fear of losing rides. All yards have an annual BHA inspection, so why couldn’t the inspector ask to see evidence that expenses have been submitted and paid? Encouragingly there are many trainers who don’t want or earn anything from the apprentices, Paul Nicholls being a notable example. Finally a number of contractual frameworks and models are available that can be evaluated with improvements made where necessary. So for example changes could be adopted along clearer sliding scales whereby as the young rider loses some of the claim, so they retain a greater percentage of the prize-money.

The biggest risk must be one of unintended consequences whereby trainers decide it is too much hassle to take on and train youngsters, which would be a great loss to the sport. Less tangibly, it could also have a lifelong impact on the young people concerned. For apprentices in the right relationship with the right trainer, it can be a life-changing experience, not just about learning to ride, but how to handle themselves properly and professionally with a wide range of people. Alastair Down always said of David “The Duke” Nicholson that he was a “maker of riders; maker of men”. Many trainers across the country can hold their heads high as they shape the lives of a large number of young men and women. Improve the relationship where needed, but here’s hoping that it remains a productive and constructive one for the future.

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The Two Key Decisions for an Owner – Part 1, Buying the Horse

In many ways the two key decisions about any horse are the initial one to acquire the animal, and then deciding when it is time to move him on to pastures new. One of the reasons we set up Owners for Owners is that we were dissatisfied on too many occasions by how these decisions were managed. Over the last six weeks we have experienced both, buying The Fugitive (3yo Flemensfirth gelding) and selling Houndscourt. In this blog I’ll use the example of The Fugitive to look at some of the shady practices in buying, and in the next one, how best to move a horse on.

Like many people we came into owning via syndicates. Some worked well, but others didn’t. There were two practices we really disliked. One was the syndicate manager picking up a horse that quite frankly not many people wanted. We’ve always hated the phrase, “a fun horse”, ever since. All too often they are useless and it costs no more to train a good one than a bad one. The other practice was that of adding a big margin on to the purchase price of a horse – indeed, often doubling or even trebling it.

So how do we go about buying a horse? We always like the trainer and the bloodstock agent to buy a horse together, against a well-defined specification. Ours was £50,000 hammer price maximum, top ten NH stallion, strong NH dam line with multiple winners at listed quality or above, no ancient mares, no first foals and with the scope and correctness for chasing. We went over to Tattersalls’ Derby Sale in Ireland in June with both Charlie Longsdon and our preferred agent for NH horses, Gerry Hogan, who is based over there and has his ear well and truly to the ground. They selected over 20 horses for detailed consideration, and we eventually bid on two. We let the first one go – a Presenting who was bought for €160,000 – but acquired the second, a gorgeous Flemensfirth from the family of Albertas Run. This is a real Cotswold staying type of horse (Charlie is based at Chipping Norton) because many of his close relatives have run for trainers such as Jonjo O’Neill and Nigel Twiston-Davies, with particularly fine records at both Cheltenham and Aintree.

Here are the details of what we paid. The hammer price was €52,000 and when you add on the Tattersalls commission (6%) + Gerry’s commission + vetting + LRT transport to the UK, the final cost was £46,320, which is what we are partnering him out at, with 1/6th shares costing £7,720. I find when buying horses that as a rule of thumb you need to add about 10% to cover the various related and unavoidable costs. In Owners for Owners we don’t add on any margins or mark-ups and we don’t charge anything for going to the sales, since we enjoy them so much.

So I decided as a comparison to have a look at two large syndicate companies to see what they would charge. One of them would have syndicated the horse at somewhere between £90,000 and £100,000 (so a sixth share would cost c. £15,000) while the other, on their policy, would have been well over £120,000 (sixth share c. £20,000). I just do not understand why anyone is prepared to end up either paying twice or three times the price or, looking at it the other way round, potentially halving the quality, with their money going to pay for lower quality stock but with high margins being maintained by the syndicate manager. I’ve actually discussed this with the self-appointed trade body for racing clubs and syndicates, and they are just not prepared to acknowledge that this is a completely unethical practice.

Obviously anyone can run any business in any way they like, and owners going into a commercial transaction should have their eyes wide open, and as always, “caveat emptor” – let the buyer beware. The problem though, I think, is that some racing managers of syndicates are using this practice to conceal profit margins. Personally I believe that if there were a code of practice for syndicates and racing clubs it would outlaw it, and require all racing managers to provide explicit and transparent breakdowns of costs of purchase and also their ongoing charges. If the syndicates then continued to ramp the price of the initial purchase, I think they would lose business rapidly. Transparency would drive much-needed changes in commercial practice.

What do you think? You have been warned!

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Grand Times at the Grand National – The Aintree Experience and Retraining of Racehorses

My wife and I always try to go to Aintree for the Grand National and for my money it is the best-organised NH meeting of the whole season- superb facilities, fabulous racing, and a real party atmosphere as 70,000 Scousers turn out in force, in their finery. It may be easy for the press to mock the excesses of “Ladies’ Day”, and it is certainly testimony to the tanning salon and tattoo parlour, but it really makes for a magnificent Aintree experience. It was also great to see the first £1m National, with excellent prize-money down to 10th. One of the real pleasures of the winter sport is that the “little man” can grab a huge prize. Charlie Longsdon in his blog summed it up really well: “Highlight of the Aintree meeting had to be Dr. Newland’s great win with Pineau De Re – he has 12 horses in training, and that is what the Grand National is all about. It is a fantastic story – something that could not happen in Flat racing. That’s why we love the National Hunt game. Everyone has a chance of having a superstar, and you do not have to have 150 horses in training and spend £100,000 to buy a great horse. Bring on the National in 2015!!!” Another of our trainers, Philip Hobbs, must certainly be thinking that – his Balthazar King, still improving at the age of 10, came 2nd and won £211,000. There was also a nice interview with Philip and Richard Johnson on Channel 4 – 16 years together. Although he didn’t say it on air, he has a lovely line: “If I don’t change my wife or my car very often, why should I change my jockey?” (Apologies [to Sarah] if I’ve misquoted, Philip – and I think I have – but that is the gist!)

There were several great results here for racing, not least Pineau De Re’s victory off the reasonable mark of 143 (certainly when Owners for Owners has a horse over 140 that stays forever, I know where we’re going). The excellent sponsor, marketing and branding for Crabbies created a very positive impression and they must be delighted with how the whole event unfolded, especially the avoidance of any controversy. There were no fatalities, and the way in which the core structure of the fences has changed for the better has been a most successful feature of Aintree for the last two years. It is also testimony to the leadership of Lord Daresbury who stepped down as Chairman at the meeting this year. When I first started going racing in the North I used to follow him as a rider. As Peter Greenall he was also the boss of the now-defunct brewery, Greenall Whitley (their bitter was often described as “only suitable to put on chips”), before selling the business off and concentrating on the hotels and leisure industry. One of the few real strategists in business and racing.

Finally, full marks again to the BHA for the way in which they took a proactive stance through the marquee and publicity for thehorsecomesfirst.com. They had a prominent and well-staffed stand by the parade ring and throughout the three days of the meeting, there was a concerted campaign to engage racegoers and raise awareness of the high standards of equine welfare in our sport. Proactivity like this is far better than responding reactively when there is a problem. Literature was given out containing such positive statistics as:

• Over the last 15 years the equine fatality rate during racing has fallen by a third, from 0.3% to 0.2%.
• The sport has invested over £25m in veterinary activities including research and education since 2000.
• There are estimated to be 1m horses in the UK. Racehorses are the best looked-after 2%.
• There are over 9,000 horses registered with Retraining of Racehorses active in other equine disciplines such as polo, showing, dressage and eventing.
• Our sport employs over 6,000 people providing first-class care and attention to the 14,000 horses in training.

Finally on the statistics front, there was a very interesting piece of information based on a study by Liverpool University which found that 62% of “traumatic injuries” (ranging from grazes to fractures) suffered by a sample of leisure and competition horses occurred when turned out in a paddock, compared to only 13% during ridden exercise. This certainly confirms my own experiences – I tend to be more worried when horses are on their summer holidays turned out in a field, than when they are being carefully looked after in their boxes in a yard. I hope all our NH horses that are being turned out now for the summer take note of this!

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.

A Horse Called “UKRacingStratPlan” (?!?)

Having mapped out in the last two blogs my own five “Big Es” and five “Little es” (ten resolutions for the racing industry), I thought I would have a go at tuning in to the more formal strategic intent, goals, priorities and key initiatives for our industry over the next three to five years. Now, you would think that the obvious location for such a strategy would be the British Horseracing Authority, since their web site proudly proclaims that they are “The Official Governing Body of Racing – The First Place for British Horseracing”.

As chairman of a management consultancy I suppose I have become a bit cautious about talking to senior executives about strategy, so I did my preparation, mapped out a number of key open questions and went to the phone expecting a lengthy and searching discussion. The reaction to my opening question, “Could you please tell me where I can find a documented and approved five-year strategy for British racing?” produced an extremely long silence, followed by my being routed around the BHA Holborn office. I chuckled as the general tone of the responses (I never got beyond the first question) went along the lines of: “I’m not sure which department would be in charge of that”; “Since we don’t have any control over racecourses etc., we wouldn’t expect to have a strategy, would we?”; “It’s very difficult, since we have so many stakeholders, so perhaps it would be better if you talked to them first”; “I’m not sure that we’ve got one, or if we have, I haven’t seen it”; and “If it does exist, I don’t think we would release it”.

Not quite sure that this was what I was expecting from a body that sits astride a multi-billion pound industry, with many thousands of dependent employees and a whole infrastructure of breeders, trainers, stable staff, racecourses, bookmakers and owners. I definitely think I’m going to become an investigative journalist in another life. I decided to fire off an email with a more formal request to Paul Bittar, CEO of the BHA, and am awaiting his response with some interest. I’m doing the same with the ROA and Racing for Change.

While waiting to hear more, I’ve been grappling with some of the issues of registering the Owners for Owners racehorses, one element of which is naming them. For any of you who have tried this, you will know that it can be incredibly difficult, since nearly every name you can think of seems already to have been registered. Well, I can say with confidence that one name that no-one has ever used is “UKRacingStratPlan” (that’s even inside the 18 characters maximum limit). Not the catchiest of names, I grant you. I wonder what the breeding would be. How about, by Machiavellian out of Bureaucracy (by Jobsworth).

I’m hoping to be proved wrong, but my fear is that no-one in the racing hierarchy believes that they are accountable for developing a strategic plan that tries to address the huge opportunities but also the great structural weaknesses that currently exist across our sport.

On much less weighty (but far more enjoyable) matters, we held the first Owners for Owners’ “Meet the Trainer” morning with Jamie Snowden at Lambourn last Saturday (pictures on the Latest News page). We had a really enjoyable time, despite Arctic conditions, and saw our Houndscourt put in a sterling performance alongside one of Jamie’s best horses, Present View. There will be other, similar sessions later in the year with Philip Hobbs, Charlie Longsdon and Elaine Burke. Finally, Quick Decisson, our bumper horse with Philip Hobbs, put in a really brave performance in atrocious conditions at Exeter on Sunday. He was just run out of 2nd place and beaten by a decent horse from David Pipe’s, in Vieux Lion Rouge. We’ve had three runs so far and all three have been in the money; long may that continue!

Dunkelbrauner Hengst

As we’re racing into the full sales season now, all our trainers are looking out for exciting prospects. Since the last blog we have also added two new trainers, in Philip Hobbs and Charlie Longsdon. I’ve had horses with both of them before, and full details are on the web site. Great additions.

Karl Burke, Lars Kelp, Jack and I kicked off the yearling sales with a visit to Baden Baden (BBAG) on 31st August. Very impressed with the overall quality at the top end, and we tried very hard to buy a Shirocco colt (in German, a “dunkelbrauner Hengst”). Alas, Anthony Bromley was even more determined to secure him. Some of us then consoled ourselves with a couple of days in the Black Forest before watching Danedream complete her prep run for the Arc in the Grosser Preis von Baden. Terrific stuff. Karl and Lars are now going on to the sales in Ireland and Deauville on the yearling hunt. We’re determined to buy outside the UK to use the £ / € currency advantage to best effect, while also looking for real value. Again, full details on the web site.

On the National Hunt front, both Jamie Snowden and Charlie Longsdon are working with their lead agents, Tom Malone and Highflyer respectively, in a search for top-class chasing prospects. We’re hoping to have more details over the next month or so.

Finally, Philip Hobbs has given us an option to purchase up to three young NH horses. In effect this means he is giving us priority to buy, while he and I use his network of owners to (hopefully) enable us to commit to some or all of them. Details of all three horses will be on the web site soon. My personal favourite is the impeccably bred Presenting 3yo filly out of a Cadoudal mare, who is a half-sister to Geos. This season sees an increase in the number of races for fillies and mares only, including several Listed races, so there’s never been a better time to own a national hunt bred mare with longer term breeding prospects.

Do please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in a share of any of these horses with one of our roster of four trainers.