Nostalgia for Race Names, Whip Bans, Small Fields ….. and Hopefully a Great Win for Ms Parfois

One of the great pleasures of racing is the network of friends and owners who share in all the highs and lows of our sport. This has been made clear to me during this week in the run up to one of my favourite races of the season, the Ladbrokes Trophy Chase over 3m 2f at Newbury this afternoon. The main reason for this is that I know the owner of Ms Parfois, Martyn Chapman, who is a very enthusiastic and generous supporter of Anthony Honeyball’s yard. Indeed, he has adopted many of the principles and approaches of Owners for Owners partnerships for his own syndicates at the yard. I’ve followed Ms Parfois ever since Anthony bought her, and am also a big fan of her sire, Mahler, who seems to produce tough, game and genuine stayers that definitely mature with age. All the conditions look right for this horse at Newbury, and I’ll be absolutely thrilled if she can land a huge prize for connections. There’s another link to this race through one of our owners, Ged Shields, who is involved in a horse with Karl Burke on the Flat and also has a share in Kemboy at Willie Mullins’ yard. This horse is on a really strong upward trajectory at the moment and was 2nd favourite for the Ladbrokes before being scratched due to Storm Diana preventing his coming over to Newbury. The word “gutted” doesn’t begin to describe Ged’s disappointment, and I can only commiserate. Highs and lows, in just one race.

For those of us with long memories, however, the big race this afternoon will always be known as the Hennessy. When I was in my early years at grammar school in Chester, the Duchess of Westminster used to look after Arkle on the family estate at Eaton Hall. The local newspapers were full of the Arkle story and he put in so many heroic performances, not least winning the Hennessy in 1964 and 1965. When my wife and I lived high on the Woolley Downs near Lambourn, we went to every Hennessy and I can still vividly remember the magnificent Denman’s wins in 2007 and 2009. I must admit to having a nostalgia for these old race names, and even now I refer to the big race at Cheltenham in November as the Mackeson, rather than the Betvictor Gold Cup, as it was this year.

Unfortunately this year’s renewal was marred by the disappointing gamesmanship of Jamie Moore who knowingly broke the whip rule on the super-game Baron Alco. While it was a wonderful performance by the horse, it was dreadful to watch Jamie leathering him into and after the last, for which he rightly received a whip ban. You can’t get away from the fact that this is just professional cheating. The second horse, Frodon, also ran a super race ridden by Bryony Frost. She stayed within the rules, but her gallant mount was beaten two lengths. Surely there has to be a change in the whip rule that allows such blatant cheating to be rewarded. To my mind there are two options available to the BHA. One is massively to increase the punishment of the jockey – how about a month’s ban for the first offence, two months for the second, three for the third, etc.? I’m sure jockeys would soon learn how to count how many times they are allowed to hit a horse. The other option is to reverse the placings, which I think is terribly harsh on the owner of the winner. Much as I admire Jamie Moore as a jockey, he has previous in this area, and on one occasion at the Cheltenham Festival he shrugged off the ban by going on holiday in the Caribbean, paid for by connections. Before leaving this subject, Ms Parfois was involved in a similar episode in last year’s National Hunt Challenge Cup for amateurs at the Cheltenham Festival. The mare was ridden by William Biddick, who stayed within the rules, only to be beaten half a length by another cheating jockey in P.W. Mullins on Rathvinden. It is all most unfair.

A final topical subject is the increasing concern about very small field sizes in certain types of National Hunt races. Throughout the Cheltenham meetings this autumn, novice races in particular have been very poorly supported. As I wrote this blog yesterday, I saw that there are only four runners in a novice chase at Newbury, and that is becoming the norm. One impression I have formed is that we’re clearly in an era of huge concentration of buying power in the hands of a very small number of exceptionally rich owners. Their horses then find their way into an equally small number of yards, where trainers can pick and mix their races to avoid their top horses competing against each other. Indeed, it has been notable particularly with the runners from Gordon Elliott’s yard that he is increasingly sending horses over to the UK and closing down competition because smaller British trainers don’t want their horses racing against his firepower.

This situation is demotivating a lot of what I call the grassroots owners. There is an increasing feeling that it is becoming impossible to compete, both at the sales and on the track. The owner pool in National Hunt in the UK is declining at a faster rate than that on the Flat. Overall, covering both codes, 11% of owners leave the sport every year but there is only a 9% new intake. It seems likely that this worrying pattern will continue, partly because of economic uncertainty but also because of the demographics of the NH owner base. Here is a scary statistic to conclude this blog – there are now more National Hunt owners aged over 80 than under 40. I’m sure all of them remember fondly their Mackesons and Hennessys.

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Farewell to Denman. A Truly Great Horse and the End of a Magnificent NH Era.

When I was a kid, growing up in Chester, the wonder horse Arkle was owned by the Duchess of Westminster and would spend holiday time on the Eaton Estate just outside my home town. He was probably the first racehorse that I readily identified with, and although memories of his races have only really come from grainy TV recordings, it was his ability to win under huge weights in handicaps that for me made him a true champion. Only one horse since has made such an impression, and that was the mighty Denman, who passed away on Tuesday 5th June. By the early part of the new century I was living just outside Lambourn and always went to the Newbury meetings. I’ll never forget Denman’s unbelievable performance in the Hennessy Gold Cup on 1st December 2007. Without any doubt it was the best handicap performance I’ve ever seen in my life. Brutal and magnificent in equal measure. He destroyed a top-quality field (and earned an amazing OR of 182 in the process, which puts it into perspective), thoroughly deserving his nickname of “The Tank”. Racing Post journalist Tom Kerr wrote a magnificent article in the Racing Post and I reproduce it with full acknowledgements below. I couldn’t agree more with Tom in his comments about the horse and his contribution to promoting our wonderful sport.

Denman reminded all us devotees it is the legends who sell racing best

It has been a mere ten years since Denman wrote his name indelibly into racing history as he steamed in all his fury to 2008 Gold Cup victory; just seven since he and Kauto Star chased home Long Run in that glorious last hurrah at Cheltenham in 2011. It is hard to believe that now both halves of that great rivalry are no more already, but while an era ended with Denman's death this week the legacy of those two great horses will echo down the decades.

No one who saw the two titans in all their pomp will ever forget them. They will provide us with anecdotes long into the future, give us stories with which to bore future generations as they obsess over the next bright young thing, until, at last, when all of us who saw them run turn to dust, Denman and Kauto Star pass into the ranks of legend – long gone stars whose light still flickers in the dead of night.

Perhaps the greatest service those two horses gave racing was in how they drew to the sport a generation of fans who might otherwise never have fallen under its spell. Not since Desert Orchid has there been a horse who captivated a new generation as did Kauto Star and Denman and none, not even Frankel, has achieved such a feat since.

I was part of that generation and without those two horses, their soaring performances and their enduring rivalry, my journey through life would have been so much the poorer. There are countless thousands of us out there who were introduced to racing's glory by their exploits and their tussles.

Everyone drawn into the sport by Denman, and they are legion, will have their own moment of indoctrination: perhaps it came during his first Hennessy in 2007, when he lugged top weight around Newbury and pulled up the trees as he swept away his opposition. Perhaps it was that 2008 Gold Cup, which I hold to be one of the finest races of all time, for all that I lost almost every penny I had punting Kauto Star for the months leading up to it. Maybe it came later, when he overcame a heart scare to win that emotional second Hennessy and run heroic placed efforts in the Gold Cup.

I still recall the dawning realisation that racing was more than just a fun day out and an engaging way to bet a few quid, that instead it was a world of epic heroes, mud-splattered beasts that seemed to have leapt from the pages of ancient lore into our sterile modern world. Only horses like Kauto Star and Denman can awaken such thoughts.

By the very nature of being once-in-a-generation horses, animals like that do not come around often. The Red Rums, the Dessies, the Dancing Braves, the Frankels, the Secretariats, the American Pharoahs – it is their scarcity that makes them so intoxicating to watch and follow. They are the Usain Bolts, the Muhammad Alis, the George Bests, the Roger Federers of our sport. Yet when they do roll around, that once in a decade moment when a superstar emerges out of obscurity to light up our lives for a short few years, they revitalise the sport, bringing into the racing fold thousands of new believers. We can market the sport every way we like, tinker with conventions and conditions to our hearts' content, but nothing will ever change the fact that it is equine heroes who drive racing.

This is the fundamental flaw of so many marketing wheezes dreamt up to promote racing. They are all very well in and of themselves, and some do have a positive impact, but racing's appeal – at least as sport rather than a betting medium – rests heavily on the exploits of its most talented equine stars.

Take the mooted Championship Horse Racing enterprise, which is scheduled to begin next summer and will supposedly invigorate the sport by bringing team sensibilities to racing, with sponsored Formula 1-style sides of trainers, horses and jockeys competing against each other over several weeks.

The idea is that by doing this we will create new loyalties, that new fans will be drawn to the sport by the prospect of calling themselves followers of the Emirates Eagles, John Lewis Jaguars or the Qipco Quails. It is laughable stuff, really, the notion that something as soulless as corporate tribalism is ever going to take root. But take away the corporate branding and it still doesn't make sense, this idea that racing needs teams, because it ignores the reality that it is not humans, homelands or identities that people follow in racing, but horses.”

Denman (left) with his stablemate and rival Kauto Star

Edward Whitaker

Kauto Star and Denman inspired ferocious loyalty and dedicated followings, the like of which has not been seen in racing for decades and may not occur again for a generation, despite living side by side, despite sharing the same trainer, despite sharing three jockeys over their career. They created that passion by simply being the best, by inspiring awe, by being something that so many of us had never seen before.




Now, too soon, they are gone. We should not mourn what we have lost, but celebrate all that they gave us – passions to last a lifetime, memories to last forever.

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The Cheltenham Festival – The Ace in the Pack. It’s Certainly Bigger, But Is It Better?

My wife and I went along to The Centaur at Prestbury Park on Sunday to listen to an excellent OLBG-sponsored preview evening chaired by Jeremy Kyle, with the panel consisting of Ruby Walsh, A.P. McCoy, John Francome and Fergal O’Brien. John was definitely the star of the evening – informative and witty in equal measure. I believe, probably like many people, that he’s the finest NH jockey I’ve seen and certainly the one with the best sense of humour. Throughout the evening he was the butt of lots of Kyle comments, but he wafted them away with wit and aplomb, even at the interval when Kyle kept emphasising that the show had to stop to enable John to go to the toilet. Rather grossly, when he came back, he enquired whether he’d had time to “empty his bag”. We all know that Mr. Kyle spends lots of time with losers, so he’s probably not used to dealing with one of the all-time stars of the game. At one point during the evening John was reflecting on how, in the early days, he had to fill in a form stating who he wanted contacting in the event of a serious accident on the course. He just wrote on the form, “a doctor”. Oh, for the days when racing was more light-hearted, and real characters dominated the stage.

Listening to John also had me thinking back to the first time I went to the Festival in 1981. What was the big talking point on Day One that year? Anyone who was there will immediately say it was the famous Francome pull on Sea Pigeon going into the last hurdle. The horse was travelling so well, he didn’t want to hit the front too early, so the brakes were put on before he scampered away from the magnificent Monksfield to win by seven lengths at the top of the hill – the most breathtaking piece of riding I’ve seen in National Hunt.

Nothing like nostalgia in our sport, is there, and all the debates on who the greatest horses of all time would be, and the best trainers, jockeys and dare I say it, even owners. Mentioning Monksfield is what the marketing and media types call a “segue” – a link to another subject. He wasn’t a big horse at all, but an incredibly game battler who had a huge, raking stride on him. In Owners for Owners, we’re in the really fortunate position to have a horse with a similar and almost freakish action in Acey Milan, who at the time of writing this blog is 3rd favourite for the Champion Bumper and on form, having won two Listed bumpers at Cheltenham and Newbury, is the second top rated horse in the race and the highest rated bumper in Great Britain. He’s had quite a long season now, with four races – three wins and one second – so how well he does depends on whether he has held his form going into the Festival. As he can only have a fifth bumper run in a Listed race, we didn’t really have any choice but to head into the Champion, and once he’d won the top-quality Newbury bumper by 11 lengths we all decided that he had to take his chance. No matter what happens this week, he looks a lovely prospect for the future.

The only similarity I have with John Francome is age, and the four days of the current Festival certainly take their toll – on the liver and the aching knees as I rack up miles of walking around the course and mountainous climbs up the various stands. It sometimes feels like a test of endurance, with similarities to the 4m National Hunt Chase on Day One, which hopefully Anthony Honeyball (trainer of Acey Milan) will win with Ms Parfois.

One of the recurring themes throughout the week is bound to be whether the predominance of Cheltenham is sometimes to the detriment of National Hunt racing. Superficially it seems obvious that the whole Festival frenzy is a most wonderful promotion of racing as well as a huge revenue-generator. When I saw Sea Pigeon the attendance was a quarter of what it is now, and the facilities were dreadful in comparison. This week, over a quarter of a million people are likely to attend. If they all spend, say, £100 minimum getting in and having a few drinks on the course, then as the Americans would say, “do the math”. Indeed with Guinness at a fiver and a glass of wine at a tenner, it doesn’t take long to get past that minimum figure.

It’s probably inevitable that the four-day Festival will soon span five days, with the Gold Cup on Saturday. For the large numbers of people for whom the Festival is all about being at a big occasion and drinking yourself horizontal, it doesn’t really matter. If you’re an afficionado who wants to see the most competitive, highest quality racing, then the risk is dilution of that through a wider range of additional races that trainers can pick and mix from. As we’re now in an era where four trainers in Messrs. Elliott, Henderson, Mullins and Nicholls, and prime owners such as Gigginstown, J.P. McManus, Simon Munir / Isaac Suede and Rich Ricci, there is an increasing risk that trainers and owners with their top horses can avoid the competition that genuinely produces champions. However, I’m sure that economics will prevail and that the mighty, heroic clashes of yesteryear become less frequent, which is a real pity.

In the last blog I mentioned how much I’d enjoyed going over to Leopardstown for the two-day Dublin Festival. Even in my dotage I think that I could survive a two-day Cheltenham Festival, which of course is never going to happen, but that would be my absolute ideal. Three days I thought was excellent; I’m dubious about four; and I definitely wouldn’t attend five. Of course, if Acey Milan has ended up by winning the Champion Bumper, then I can probably invest in a top-of-the-range zimmer frame.

Enjoy the week, everyone.

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“The Ace in the Pack” …. But with More to Come, Hopefully. The Change of Plan Pays Off with Acey Milan

As anyone who reads this blog regularly will know, I’ve been astounded by the huge increases in bloodstock prices for National Hunt horses in recent years. Horses that used to be selling for £30-40k are now going for £60-100k, and there is no shortage of very rich owners who are prepared to pay considerable multiples on top of that. The average hammer price now for a three-year-old store horse at the top sales in Ireland is €50k, so with sales commissions on top, and then maybe a year’s training before you get the horse to the track, you’re knocking on the door of £70k or more on average and, unfortunately, paying that amount of money most definitely doesn’t guarantee you a nice horse. In fact increasingly it looks as though the good horses are being taken out of the equine supply chain very early in their life, and there is no shortage of trainers and agents scouring England, Ireland, France and Germany looking for them.

So, back at the end of 2014, in Owners for Owners we decided to change tack and adopt the policy of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. Rather than buying the majority of our horses as ready-to-go point-to-pointers with some form on the page, we created a new buying plan in conjunction with trainers and agents. The focus shifted to foals, yearlings and the occasional unraced 3yo store so that we had more confidence that we were dealing with a “blank canvas” and not buying into someone else’s problem. Fortunately we found quite a few owners who shared a very similar philosophy and had come to the same conclusions. They all wanted to enjoy the development journey of watching a youngster grow up into a racehorse, and were prepared to fund that for three years or more. Patience became the key virtue, with absolutely no pressure whatsoever to kick on with the youngsters too soon.

In 2014 / 15, we bought the first three foals, all by proven or up-and-coming sires: Milan, Sholokhov and Oscar. We also bought a beautiful year-older Getaway at the same time, and since then two more foals, one by Beat Hollow and one by Mahler, as well as a 3yo by Presenting. Quite an investment in seven youngsters, and inevitably with horses there will be one or two disappointments. However we felt that if we managed to achieve better results than we had been doing with the ready-to-go horses, it would be a vindication of the policy.

I’m not in any way crowing about this because, alas, we did have a tragedy with one of them, which hit all his owners extremely hard. But with one of them, Acey Milan with Anthony Honeyball, we appear to have a seriously smart animal on our hands who won the Listed bumper at Cheltenham and then, last Saturday, following up in the top bumper of the season so far, at Newbury. He annihilated the field, going away to win by 11 lengths, in the process probably establishing himself as the best bumper horse in England and entering the betting as 4th favourite for the Champion Bumper at the Festival. He’s the only four-year-old of the first 20 horses. The last 4yo to win this bumper was Cue Card!! Whether or not we go there will very much depend on whether the horse is in the same form by mid-March, and if he starts to train off in any way after four bumper runs, we’ll put him away and look forward to staying novice hurdles in the autumn. He is running over two miles on heavy ground at the moment but there is a view that he might be better over 2½ miles plus on better ground.

It was obviously amazingly exciting to win the two Listed bumpers as well as one at Wincanton in November, but the real source of pleasure has come from watching Acey Milan develop. When we bought him from Bryan Murphy’s stud near the Dunraven Arms in Co. Limerick, he was pretty small and quite sickly. Anthony and Rachael Honeyball came over to Ireland with us, and when we were shown him we were all very impressed by his beautiful long stride. The deal was done on the basis of that. Nothing in the meantime has changed our view of his conformation and action, and it is a noticeable feature when he’s racing. As you can see in the three photos below, he has developed considerably since, although he is still not a big horse – just a very fluent athlete. We used to joke when he was still a little tiddler that he was saying to us, “Don’t worry – when I grow up I’m going to be a racehorse”. None of us lost the faith, and it is tremendously satisfying to be where we now are. Special mention has to go to his groom all the way through, Chloe Emsley, who as you can see on one of the pictures to the right absolutely adores him. There was a day up on the gallops with Anthony back in the early autumn when Acey Milan was doing a breeze with Regal Encore. Chloe gave him a bit of rein and he shot past his older companion. Anthony just looked at me and said, “Hello …..” We haven’t really looked back since.

We’re just about to start partnering out a couple of new babies and store horses, and if you’d like to get involved in a similar journey, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Here’s hoping we have lots more Aces in the pack.

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Festival Fever Fuels the Fortunes of Racing: Time to Extend Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals?

Wasn’t the victory of One For Arthur in the Grand National a sensational performance for all the connections, not least the Two Golf Widows and Lucinda Russell. As far as I know it is only the second Scottish victory in the race, the last being Rubstic in 1979, and this win should hopefully provide impetus for Northern NH racing which has declined to such a dire state in recent decades.

My wife and I went up for the whole Aintree festival and thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly as the weather favoured the meeting – especially an absolutely gorgeous Saturday. It may not have helped the ITV viewing figures, but the enormous crowd had a superb time. Indeed I don’t think I’ve ever seen a larger crowd on a British racecourse, and the revenue generated must have been colossal. This is also the case for the bookmaking industry with over £0.25bn staked on the race, which makes it over ten times more popular with punters than the FA Cup final.

It is certainly not a cheap meeting to attend, however. Our two badges for the Earl of Derby Stand and the car park cost over £300 on Grand National day. Having said that, for anyone who is a member of the ROA badge scheme, Day 1 is a bargain with free entry, and one of the best days’ jumping of the whole season. On that day we were thrilled to see one of our favourite horses in training, Defi Du Seuil, confirm his dominance and remain unbeaten. Philip Hobbs did a great job playing a straight bat on whether this super horse will go to the Champion Hurdle or the Arkle at next year’s Cheltenham Festival – a lovely problem to solve. Also delighted for Anthony and Rachael Honeyball when their Fountains Windfall ran the field ragged in the opening race of the final day under an extremely enterprising ride from David Noonan.

A final observation is that the partnership between Ann and Alan Potts, Colin Tizzard and Robbie Power has got off to the most incredible start. Indeed the wins of Finians Oscar, Fox Norton and Sizing Cadelco netted the Potts a total of £207,900 which they promptly spent at the boutique Goffs Aintree sale buying the top lot, Madison To Monroe, for £300,000. It says a lot about the price of NH bloodstock these days when even winning three races at Aintree barely pays for two thirds of a top-quality Irish point-to-pointer. Yet again the median in the sale rose considerably from last year’s £70,000 to this year’s £86,000. The dominance of top owners and top yards continues, with few opportunities for grassroots owners even to get a look in …. although having said that, One For Arthur was exceptionally well bought for “only” £65,000 as a youngster. Interestingly many NH owners are becoming more creative in how they go about buying young stock, as it is impossible to compete in the top sales. Finian’s Oscar was bought as a yearling in the Autumn Arqana sale for €20,000 and that is a sale that Owners for Owners is really enthusiastic about. Our Black Prince with Anthony Honeyball came from that sale and although only a 3yo he is a horse who will hopefully come through as a lovely NH prospect in time. We’ll definitely go back to that sale this Autumn.

It is becoming apparent that both keen racegoers and the general public love the big occasion of racing festivals. The four days of Cheltenham and the three of Aintree are probably attracting well over 400,000 attendees now. It is not that long ago that these meetings were very much dominated by die-hard enthusiasts who went along every day. I’m convinced that pattern is changing, with many now going for just one or two days. Indeed a huge percentage of the crowd don’t really seem to have much knowledge of, or be particularly interested in, the horses as such. It is the festival as an event that matters, rather than just the championship races on the track. Many argue that by extending these meetings you dilute the experience, and while that may be true for racing’s intelligentsia, I doubt if it is the case for the vast bulk of attendees.

If that conclusion is correct, then it probably now makes sense for both Aintree and Cheltenham to capitalise on the festival experience and maximise their revenue by increasing the meetings by a day. Without knowing the profit figures, this could lead to another very substantial injection of funds into the sport, particularly for investment in grassroots racing. Both Cheltenham and Aintree already have seven-race cards, so by reducing them back to six together with framing a number of additional races, another day could easily be filled. So for example at Aintree a “consolation” Grand National would be very popular with trainers and owners for those horses balloted out of the big one, and provide the crowds at each of the four days with an Aintree spectacle over the huge fences.

Whether my body could actually withstand the onslaught of an extra day at each of these festivals is debatable, so I suspect I would reduce attendance. However I do think there is a compelling financial argument for capitalising on the enormous popularity of the festivals.

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Remembrance Sunday and NH Superstars – So Many Poignant Moments at Cheltenham

Remembrance Sunday and NH Superstars – So Many Poignant Moments at Cheltenham

The general consensus about the three-day Open meeting at Cheltenham last weekend was that it was a mini-festival in many ways: absolutely terrific racing, with lots of current and future superstars in action. The crowd welcomed a number but, alas, said farewell to a few as well, not least the immensely talented but fragile Simonsig who broke a leg in the Shloer Chase on Sunday, and Sprinter Sacre who had been retired after suffering a tendon strain, but was paraded in front of his adoring fans at Prestbury Park. Ben Pauling’s best horse, Barters Hill, slipped a tendon off a hock and will be out for a some time, while Thistlecrack gave the crowd many heart-stopping moments. Colin Tizzard’s post-race comment was a distinct understatement when he said that the horse was “a bit exuberant”. He bunny-hopped a few, banked a couple and flew the rest. Doubtless he is a future Gold Cup winner …. but make it 2018, Colin.

I remember seeing Sprinter Sacre for the first time in the Game Spirit Chase at Newbury on 17th February 2012, when he put in a majestic round of jumping and just strolled away from the field up the straight. I followed the horse back up the walkway and asked Barry Geraghty what he thought to him. With all the expletives deleted, it was along the lines of: “Absolute superstar”. No-one would disagree. Alastair Down wrote an article on the retirement of Sprinter Sacre for the Racing Post. It was so good that I’ve decided to include it in its entirety. Here is Alastair’s eloquent piece, entitled: “Superstar Sprinter had swagger and brilliance”.

“HE was the James Bond of two-mile chasers - devilishly handsome, lethal in action and, when it came to winning, usually just needing to be shaken not stirred.

The name is Sacre. Sprinter Sacre.

At the zenith of his scarcely believable powers there was something almost absurdly glamorous about Sprinter Sacre, and from early on the public were drawn to him as the expression 'animal magnetism' could have been coined for him.

He had a buccaneer's swagger about him and if you plonked someone who had never been racing at the side of the paddock they could not fail to pick him out as the beau ideal of what an equine athlete should look like.

But if he was a prince in the parade ring he was simply the king out on the course. Sprinter Sacre won his first ten chases and in doing so redrew the map of the known two-mile world.

Imperious and untouchable, he made the hellfire rattle of a Grade 1 chase over two miles look easy whereas the truth is all about horses at full stretch from flagfall and the requirement to jump with the precision of a Swiss watch.

His 2012 Arkle defeat of Cue Card and his first Champion Chase victory by 19 lengths over Sizing Europe were, in terms of sheer style and superiority, ground-breaking and stands-shaking. Both days had about them the unmistakable scent of racing history.

Recovery and return

And very much part of our admiration for Sprinter Sacre is that his career suddenly ceased to be a seamless progression and entered the zone of struggle.

When he was pulled up at Kempton in December 2012 it was the precursor to 13 months off the course. At various times while he was being patiently rebuilt at Seven Barrows many thought we would not see him again or that should he return it would be as a shadow of the emperor of old.

Indeed, when he came back for his three runs in early 2015 he finished second, was pulled up in the Champion Chase and then second again. Some of the fires still clearly burned but the blazing brilliance - like those ancient hilltop beacons that sent both warnings and great news countrywide in days of old - seemed extinguished.

But through the days of doubt one man's faith never seemed to waver and he ever looked for the first streaks of a fresh dawn to drive the darkness away.

Be in no doubt, Nicky Henderson's handling of Sprinter Sacre has been the stuff of genius.

 
PICTURE: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

This finest of all two-mile chasers has taken us to undiscovered places by roads never previously trod but it has been Henderson who has planned every step and nurtured his phenomenon back to fitness.

And it was never solely about getting Sprinter right physically, but keeping him sweet between the ears. Pain, discomfort and enforced inactivity can play with horses' minds and blunt their relish for the job. Few would have tolerated what Sprinter Sacre went through without being scarred.

Nicky will have had to push on occasions but he would never shove. He loves his horses and anyone listening to him on Sunday as the emotion and gratitude poured out will have realised this will never be a loveless world as long as Henderson and steeplechasers reside at Seven Barrows.

It was exactly a year ago in the Shloer Chase that Sprinter Sacre shed his chains and soared once more. It was make-or-break day for him, and in the paddock beforehand he looked awesome and had that gigolo's strut back on him.

And when he won, Cheltenham, home of the brave, went into raptures.

Henderson's finest hour

But there was more to come. When he took it up going to the second-last in the Champion Chase there was something wild about the sound as the faithful began to roar for him, British and Irish voices united in the single, thumping, heartfelt wish that Sprinter would get home.

He did of course, passing the stands to a bedlam of approbation and affection. Always a terrible show-off, witnessing his repossession of the Champion Chase crown was like watching some fable or legend come to life in front of you.

It was Henderson's finest hour and grizzled festival devotees who have lived many a winter will never tire of taking the moment out of the display case of memory and turning it over once more like something priceless. Which it was.

Henderson himself was superb yesterday, conducting a masterclass in rueful celebration as he recalled the triumphs and battles of recent years. He talked about the occasion as being a celebration of Sprinter Sacre's life, but it was also the stuff of tears.

Saying farewell to old friends is always sad and Sprinter was an old friend who never let you down when he was fit, well and able. In a beautiful phrase Nicky said: "We were very lucky to be the curator of this horse." And we were even more fortunate in having Henderson do the job and light up our world with this paragon of a racehorse.

In a turning of the screw beyond imagining, the day for Seven Barrows plummeted from sorrow at the end of a golden age to cruel distress with the death of Simonsig.

Most trainers would have got straight into the car and retired hurt. But not Nicky who, although clearly shattered by the second barrel of the gun, dealt with the media with a magnificence that was both humbling and utterly admirable.

Remembrance Sunday is never easy. In our little world it was, for some yesterday, abjectly painful. Spare a thought for them.”

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Ides of March for the Bookies: Whacked by Whittingdale and Mauled by Mullins. But Who is the April Fool? Please Step Forward, Paul Darling

So how was Cheltenham for you? I always like the turn of phrase of Alastair Down in the Racing Post, and he described this year’s festival as “the antidote to cynicism”. Having been critical of Cheltenham’s facilities in the past, it is marvellous to be able to praise the course for everything that has been done to transform Prestbury Park and make it one of the best sporting venues in the world. Indeed, in many racegoers’ eyes, it is now the best race meeting in the country and certainly this year it proved to be a punters’ paradise. Even I made money on every single day, which shows how easy it was!!! It’s a long time since I’ve had a Heinz in, but how could anyone fail to perm lots of winners from Douvan, Annie Power, Vroum Vroum Mag, Yorkhill, Vautour, Thistlecrack, Limini, Ivanovich Gorbatov, Don Cossack and then the three JP McManus-owned and top amateur-ridden hotpots of Minella Rocco, Cause Of Causes and On The Fringe – laid out, or what?

The stand-out performances for me were Douvan in the Arkle (first horse since Flying Bolt in 1965 to do the double with the Supreme Novices’); Sprinter Sacre’s emotional comeback in the Champion Chase; Any Currency’s win as a 13-y-o in the Cross Country for our trainer Martin Keighley (who attended our OfO champagne picnic with his wife Belinda that day and convinced most of those present to entrust their cash to “Woody” and Aidan – a superb ride); Vautour’s romp in the Ryanair; Thistlecrack’s sublime win in the World Hurdle; and then Don Cossack demonstrating why he is the top chaser in training in the Gold Cup (and OfO has a particular interest in him as we have a Sholokhov 2yo, nicknamed “Don Caster”). Great to see first festival wins for Dan Skelton, Harry Fry and Ian Williams as well as Martin, while you can’t help but be envious of Patricia Pugh, whose horse Altior won the Supreme Novices’ and is only the second horse she has ever owned. Victoria Pendleton, quite rightly, was lauded for her personal poise and riding performance on Pasha Du Polder, although she has a veritable mountain to climb to catch Ruby Walsh, who passed his landmark of 50 winners at the Festival on Black Hercules. And after Gold Cup day, the debates on whether Cue Card would or would not have beaten Don Cossack will continue for many years. Phew – a magnificent meeting. Now on to Aintree, where Willie Mullins is expected to send a team of over 20 horses in a bid to win the UK jump trainers’ championship crown. The last Irishman to do that was the legendary Vincent O’Brien, one of my all-time heroes. Willie is now odds-on for the title and is 6/4 to land seven or more winners in Liverpool. I wonder if we’ll see a repetition of the stats from Cheltenham – four owners managed to win half of the races. I definitely hope not.

Throughout March the backdrop to British racing has been all about the announcement by the Government on the Racing Right, and on Budget Day, Wednesday, 16th March, Chancellor Osborne reiterated that offshore betting operators will contribute to racing’s finances, and in Nick Rust’s phrase, the Government is clearly committed to a “fair, enforceable and sustainable return from all betting activity on our sport”. The timetable to introduce the new funding system was outlined by the Chancellor with consultation planned over the summer, notification to be given to the European Commission, a statutory instrument to be published by the end of the year and then the new funding model in force from April, 2017. A huge win for racing.

So I was delighted when Paul Darling, Chairman of the Association of British Bookmakers, made a short speech in which he said that “we’re clearly entering a new era of partnership between betting operators and racing. It’s time for all of us in the betting industry to admit our past failures and lack of innovation, and embrace the new spirit of partnership that will strengthen the whole of racing, its sustainable funding and our own profitability.” On behalf of the big operators that had previously declined to become Authorised Betting Partners (ABP), such as William Hill, Coral, Paddy Power, Betfred and Ladbroke’s, he announced the launch of the Aintree Betting Pledge (ABP), whereby any registered owner will be entitled to a £100 free bet that can be placed on any of the Mullins runners.

If only, if only ….. What Mr. Darling actually said is that the amount of money racing now receives from betting shops is “completely unsustainable” and that racing is a product that is now a loss-maker in his industry. He believes that the current levy is unaffordable and that it makes the racing product less attractive than others. Indeed, “racing must be willing to treat betting as a partner and not as the enemy from whom as much cash as possible must be extracted by whatever is today’s latest device”. Alas, therefore, the sniping and skirmishing is bound to continue. There are some real dinosaurs in the betting industry.

The excitements of Cheltenham prevented me from doing the promised summary of the BHA Newbury strategy forum that I attended at the beginning of March. More on this in the next blog ….. provided of course that Aintree doesn’t distract me next time, which is highly likely.

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Cheltenham – Owners, Trainers and their CLANS (Charmingly Large, Active Networks of Supporters)

The racing village is in many ways a huge network of multiple constituencies of enthusiasts, whether they be racegoers, punters, socialisers, pundits, owners or trainers. Cheltenham Racecourse is an ever powerful magnet which draws all this network together, even at one of its lesser meetings such as last weekend’s International, where the crowd is probably a third of that seen at the Paddy Power and the Festival. However, the OfO network had a great time, not least because of the excellent performances by three of our trainers, Martin Keighley, Philip Hobbs and Anthony Honeyball.

One of the most pleasant aspects of being an owner is the way in which you are automatically drawn in to the race-going CLAN, and that was definitely in evidence over the Friday and Saturday of the meeting. Martin and Belinda Keighley always receive a heartwarmingly enthusiastic reception from the crowd, and none more so after they experienced the highs but also terrible lows of racing on the first day. Their horse Hayjack, owned by James Hayman-Joyce whose son Simon is involved in one of our horses, Thady Quil, fell at the fence in the home straight and, alas, lost his life. One race later, Solstice Star put in an exuberant performance, bagging a four-timer and triggering the release of all sorts of emotions. I was in the paddock with another of our owners, Paul Davis, and we immediately gave Belinda a huge hug as the terrible low turned into a huge high. What we didn’t know was that it was captured on Channel 4 Racing and texts quickly followed asking us whose partner (other than our own) we were hugging. Fortunately my wife, when she was a lawyer, specialised in crime rather than divorce! We were then swept along by all the owners into the winners’ circle and on for champagne afterwards. The CLAN was definitely in action.

On the second day, Philip Hobbs’ wonderful season continued with a superb training performance to have the first and second in the top race of the meeting, the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup. Dickie Johnson managed to diet down to 10st for the ride on Village Vic, who ran the field ragged. That also included our own horse, Shantou Magic, who just couldn’t go the pace that Village Vic set, and our jockey, Will Kennedy, did the right thing and looked after him on ground that was softer than he really likes. He is now going off for a bit of R&R with Claire Hart, and won’t run again until the spring. Claire and her point-to-point connections are another part of the CLAN, and it is lovely that several of our owners who have now met Claire are hacking out with her and, indeed, one of them is setting a goal of taking part in a point-to-point. This owner had also linked up with another keen supporter of Owners for Owners, Tim Dykes, and their horse, Cappielow Park, ran in the same race as Solstice Star.

Peace & Co, for Nicky Henderson, ran far too keenly and his Champion Hurdle ambitions are on hold for a while. It was interesting, though, that the winner of the International Hurdle, Old Guard, is also owned by a CLAN, as a number of Paul Nicholls’ biggest owners have joined forces to buy top horses together. Looking at the recent autumn yearling sales on the Flat, that is also becoming an increasingly important CLAN, with mega buyers worldwide working together to pick up the choicest bloodstock, even though at eye-wateringly high prices. At a slightly lesser level on price (but still far too high), the Tattersalls NH Sale was held on Friday night and again it was strongly evident how the network of agents and top owners are working together to concentrate the firepower of best horses into a small number of rich men’s hands. Good for certain owners and trainers, but demotivating for others.

Finally in the last race of the meeting, Anthony Honeyball had his first ever Cheltenham winner, landing a three-timer with the game mare Lily Waugh. This was a valuable race, and tees her up now for a chance in the Mares’ Hurdle at the Festival. The win also put a huge amount of value on to her. A number of our owners are actively involved in Anthony’s yard and we were delighted to be with Lily Waugh’s fan club, both at lunchtime in the Tattersalls Pavillion and before / after the race. You couldn’t help but laugh at grown men praying on the paddock turf for a great performance from their mare …. which is exactly what they got. This CLAN of owners really entered into the spirit of having a runner and a winner at Cheltenham. Heart-warming!

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Cheltenham Festival – Almost There, But Do Early Closers Serve Any Real Purpose?

As always, Cheltenham fever is building up, and I’m really looking forward now to the usual fabulous racing and equally usual assault on the betting account and liver! Having said that I’ve devised a few “Cheltenham survival strategies” (mostly to do with cutting down on alcohol) to get through the rigours of the meeting. Not overly confident that will succeed. Another reason for looking forward to it, though, is that we are hoping our horse Shantou Magic will be running in either the Coral Cup or the Martin Pipe, depending on the going. He trotted up in his first two novice hurdles before Christmas and then stepped up to Grade 1 in the Challow Hurdle at Newbury, where he travelled beautifully but didn’t get home from the front, and set it up for the eventual winner Captain Cutter, before trying to give lumps of weight away in a handicap at Wincanton. Off 137 he must have a decent chance, particularly in the Martin Pipe.

Anyway, the plan is to do a slightly shorter blog this time. I’ve had feedback that they are getting too long – particularly for those who read the blog on iPhones etc. Will try to curb my War & Peace tendencies.

One Cheltenham statistic that caught my eye is the incredible 1,038 entries for the eleven handicaps. For the two races that we’re considering, there are 136 entered in the Coral Cup and a staggering 166 in the Martin Pipe. Objectively this just doesn’t make any sense at all. The ranges on OR are 111-154 for the former and 112-145 for the latter. At least half of these horses have absolutely no chance of getting in, since they are probably a stone below the standard needed. Of the other half, virtually all have multiple entries, so the trainers are bound to pull them out of some of these and / or wait to be balloted out. While trainers may not be too bothered, owners certainly should be. The loss of entry fees, which as you would expect are expensive at Cheltenham, is just a complete waste of money.

So do “early closers” such as we have at the Festival make any sense at all? They certainly give pundits something to write about in the Racing Post and national press; encourage punters to take ante-post prices (which is a double lunacy – 50% of your selections probably won’t get in, and you obviously haven’t a clue what the going will be); prompt NH aficionados to have endless debates over the merits of potential combatants; and of course, boost total prize-money without the racecourse having to dig deeper into its own coffers. On the other hand they are really expensive, needlessly restrictive, and confusing for trainers.

I ran this by a couple of our trainers this week, and they both had exactly the same view: only have two early closers each year – the Grand National and the Derby. Sounds a sensible policy to me.

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Owners - #1 Stakeholders, #1 Economic Contributors …. But Well Last in the Economics of the Sport

I love this time of the year. Two year olds are coming out on to the track and showing us what they can do for next year; all the NH owners’ days are under way with the dreams of future Cheltenham and Aintree glories well and truly alive; and the champions’ days in Ireland, at Ascot, Longchamps and the Breeder’s Cup are still ahead of us. Lots to look forward to, and it is magnificent being an owner. Alas, the moose on the table (as one of my clients always used to say) is the lamentable return to most owners for their investment. In the last blog I was thinking of calling this one “Milking the 8,215 cash cows (owners) dry”. However, I’ve decided to stay with the facts as summarised in the Deloittes study, Economic Impact of British Racing 2013. But here is the key paragraph in the report for us:

“Owners are the single biggest contributors to the funding of British racing, both through their purchase of horses from breeders (£189m being breeders’ expenditure and commission paid on horse purchases) and ongoing training and racing expenditure paid to trainers, jockeys and supporting industries (£369m). After receipts of prize money and sponsorship of £85m, owners are estimated to have made a net injection of over £470m in 2012 (compared to £465m in 2008).”

So let’s dig into these figures as well as others in the report and highlight the key statistics and implications (bearing in mind that the key figures relate to 2012).

• As owners, we’re putting the thick end of half a billion pounds a year into the sport. No-one else puts anywhere near that amount of money into the game. We are the #1 economic contributor, by a considerable margin. 
• Prize money over the past decade has remained within a relatively narrow band between £94m and £110m. In 2012, it was down at £78m (although encouragingly it is rising through 2013). For every £100 an owner spent on training and racing their horse, they recovered on average £21. 
• Cumulative inflation over the same decade has been 34%, so as an absolute minimum prize money should have gone up over that period by at least a third. 
• Average costs per day for each horse in training rose from £54 to £62 over the four-year period to 2012.
• Gross cost per run was £4,000 (reduced by 20% when prize money is taken into account). This is far more than virtually every other racing nation because of the low prize money in the UK. 
• The expanding fixture list (particularly with the dross of A/W racing) has resulted in average prize money per race declining by 14% since 2003 (but of course has led to a rise in betting turnover). 
• There were 24,000 horses in training during 2012. 17,500 appeared on the track. So over a quarter of all horses didn’t appear, and obviously made no contribution whatsoever for their owners. Of those that did appear, 6,500 won at least one race, so – big intake of breath – only a quarter of horses end up winning anything. 
• Between 2008 and 2012, there was an 11% fall in the number of horses in training, and a 14% fall in the number of owners. 
• 60% of all owners are involved in joint ownership in order to share the costs. 
• The final statistic (from the ROA) is that the upper end of the ownership scale has been the most resilient. Owners with three or more horses are down 7%, whereas those with an interest in only one horse are down 16%.

Phew! At this point it’s probably best either to lie down with a large block of ice on your head, or alternatively bang said head against a brick wall. These figures just do not make any sense whatsoever. Having said that, I have no intention of decreasing my involvement, despite the economic lunacy of being an owner.

Graham Lee came out with a very interesting comment about his switch from NH to the Flat: “The jumps is about fun, but the Flat is about business.” I was talking to one of our owners and he both agreed with the statement while also thinking that it was ludicrous. Owners are being exploited because there is a view that they will carry on supporting the industry regardless because of their love for the game.

Well, my challenge to everyone in racing is let’s start looking at the whole game as a business first, and dramatically improve the total economics of the sport. That means that as owners, if we are the #1 contributor, there must be a fundamental shift in the returns. We are the #1 stakeholder, and if the economics don’t change, the whole sport is on extremely rocky foundations.

Aintree and The National – Grand Result for Racing

As readers of the blog will know, I’m a huge fan of Aintree and much prefer it to Cheltenham. Alas though, in recent years I’ve been going up to the Grand National meeting with an increasingly heavy heart, in view of all the controversy surrounding the course and injuries / fatalities to horses, not helped by the stance adopted by the RSPCA (Royal Society for Permanent Criticism of Aintree).

But what a result this year, and a really fantastic outcome for our sport. When all 40 runners sailed over Becher’s, the roar from the crowd was truly heart-warming. Hats off to Aintree for all the work they’d done to maintain the going, and the softening of the fence cores has clearly helped enormously, as did the far less frenetic than usual start, with a shorter run to the first fence. Without doubt, the National is the most famous race in the world, and the only time that our sport truly takes centre stage. Lots of statistics were being bandied about, such as that half the UK population bets on the race, £150m staked, 600 million people watching worldwide, etc. This certainly goes right to the heart of racing’s brand value and the aims of Great British Racing that were covered in the last blog.

The other statistic that I welcomed was that there were no more than 20 protesters at Aintree. I really hope that the BHA and all the bodies connected with racing do everything possible now to maintain the high ground in defence of National Hunt racing, and challenge the nay-sayers who argue that in some way jumping is cruel. As the Aintree changes have shown so purposefully, we’re doing everything possible to exercise our duty of care towards the animals that we all love and admire.

When I saw Frankel thrash Excelebration in the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot, I felt that was the best horse-race that I’d ever seen, or would probably ever see. But then to be present to watch the sublime performance of Sprinter Sacre destroy Cue Card and Flemenstar in the Melling Chase was to my humble eyes even better. Stupendous.

I was also interested to see the announcement from the Jockey Club that the £45m make-over at Cheltenham will go ahead straight after the 2014 Festival meeting, with the aim of completing it for 2016. There is going to be a new grandstand complex, some spectacular tiered viewing of the parade ring and much improved crowd circulation around it. As always in racing, there were a few vested interests fighting against it, but no doubt they will be adequately compensated and it certainly looks as though this investment plan is going to go forward quickly.

So with the Aintree spectacular and an imminent huge upgrade at Cheltenham, it really looks as though National Hunt racing is going from strength to strength. Having said that, I was wondering what other changes would make a real difference. I would certainly like to see much higher prize-money at the October Cheltenham meeting and really use this to kick-start the jumps season, and hopefully not clash it with Ascot’s Champions Day. At the other end of the season I’d also love to see either Ayr and / or the Sandown mixed meeting similarly revamped so that we really have a grand finale through March and into May. And then the race planners can have a look across the season and plug some of the weaker periods with bigger races as part of a high profile National Hunt series. Anyone against, please take one step forward.

“Little e” Resolutions for the Racing Industry – but I can see the pigs flying over Woolley Down

Despite the shocking weather, lots happening on the horse front. Quick Decisson wasn’t able to go to Wincanton when the hurdles / bumpers were abandoned, but will hopefully go to Exeter on 10th February; Shantou Magic had a really good workout at Lambourn during the week, and is only a couple of weeks off coming out; and Houndscourt did us proud with a game 2nd at Lingfield in a jumpers’ bumper. Two runs so far for Owners for Owners – a 1st and a 2nd sets the standard for whichever horse comes out next. Great to see both Timeform and Racing Post very complimentary: “plenty to recommend him on pedigree and should progress over jumps, with his long-term future likely to be over fences” and “ran a fine race on his first start since arriving from Ireland. A point winner at Tinahely in October, he would probably have found the trip on the sharp side, and rates as a decent prospect”. All very encouraging.

In the last blog, I flagged up a number of big recommendations for the racing industry. I’ve been in touch with the BHA about them and had what you might call an “interesting” discussion. More on that in the next blog.

I’m sure everyone has their own list of more immediate changes that could be easily made. Here are my “starters for 10”. As I’m writing it, I can see a flock of large pigs flying over the Woolley gallops!

1.  Racecourses and bookmakers complain of races with seven or fewer runners, particularly novice chases. Why don’t they target the problem ones and have prize-money down to eighth?

2.  Racecourses have done a great job recently with special initiatives, setting up jumpers’ bumpers, switching abandoned races to other tracks etc. Hats off, but why isn’t it done more often?

3.  Racecourses such as Chester have a fabulous Owners and Trainers facility, superb lunch etc. Others are simply shocking. Surely any track should provide something more than a stale bun and a cup of coffee, when we’re often spending £200-£500 just to get a horse to the course?

4.  Integrity of racing is critical. No problems with a crackdown on corruption – there will always be serious breaches, such as the the case of Andrew Heffernan. But two trainers I know very well, Karl Burke and Jim Boyle, were both dealt with very badly indeed and their livelihoods threatened during needlessly protracted and poorly handled investigations. Why do they take so long? I’ll examine Jim Boyle’s case in more detail in a later blog. It’s a disgrace.

5.  Prize money, and the trickle down into the racing industry, has to be improved. All of us should rally behind initiatives from the ROA and the Horsemen’s Group. Why wouldn’t we support them?

6.  Joint ownership, partnerships, syndicates etc. now represent a huge part of the industry. Yet we’re often treated as second-class citizens. How about racecourses targeting us all with special deals, much better facilities and a series of “syndicate races” with big prize money, only open to us?

7.  Racing for Change often talks about “bookending” the season. So why doesn’t that happen properly? Why have the start of the season at Cheltenham clash with Ascot’s Champions’ Day? Why is the start of the Flat such a damp squib nowadays?

8.  The administration and form-filling in being involved as an owner is simply shocking. Every form also has to have a cheque attached to it. I fear that it is a revenue stream for Weatherbys. Why can’t we have one payment (say, £100) and one form that covers everything involved? And online?

9.  The bookmakers are now evading the taxman with offshore gambling to the tune of several billions of pounds a year. How can HM Treasury allow that to happen? Put the legislation together, crack down on evasion and introduce a transaction tax on every bet struck online.

10.  Find a way of putting the welfare of horses and stable staff more centre stage. How do we do that? Don’t have any answers, but would welcome views.

I think I’ve only scratched the surface with these ten! Still lots of pigs flying out there ....