A Whinge on Racecourse Access Roads, Car Parks and Car Park Attendants – The Power of the First Impression

Over the years since I started The Owner’s Opinion blog, the pendulum has swung between quite robust, strategic articles and highly practical and more tactical offerings. Today’s blog is firmly in the latter category.

Psychologists know that the power of the first and last impressions have significantly higher impact than what goes on between them. I’m sure that this applies equally to racecourses, and we all know that there are a number of racecourses in the country that create a magnificent first impression but, alas, there are others that fail miserably. I don’t particularly like to “name and shame”, so I’ll sidestep that, but racecourses I am particularly impressed by include Newbury, the Rowley Mile course at Newmarket and my favourite track in the country, York, as far as large tracks are concerned, whereas unfortunately most of the smaller tracks are somewhat challenged, although that is not an excuse for some of the unimpressive incidents that are all too frequent. I’m not going to mention any specific courses, but you may be able to recognise some of them. Here is my whinge.

• Lack of signage: the locals may know the area but visiting owners often do not. Navigating your way through towns is never easy, and with many racecourses located out in the countryside it is often difficult to work out the correct way to approach them. When you eventually locate them, often the signage for Owners & Trainers car parks are too small and badly positioned.
• Racecourse access road: why are so many too narrow, potholed and with rough, inadequate surfacing? That isn’t just the minor tracks – it is the case at some of the biggest courses in the country. It is sometimes unclear whether they are two-lane roads, so it is left to drivers to decide. Sometimes you find that two-lane roads become one-way only at various times, though nothing explains what triggers that.
• Entrance to the car park: how many times have you encountered the custodian of the car park glaring at you for some unknown and unintended breach of procedure? While a few breezily wave you through on display of your O&T car park badge or ROA PASS card, others seem determined to block the entrance and keep you out, regardless of your entitlement to be there. It is not much of a first impression if the verbals / non-verbals are “You can’t come in”, or “You can’t park here”, or “You can come in, but can only park in that big puddle over there”, or, of course, “Anywhere you like, in the mud”.
• The car park surface: if I was going for a normal distribution of surfacing, I would say that 20% is lamentably bad; 20% a combination of grass, gravel and mud; 20% Ok apart from when it’s raining (which is hardly uncommon in this country, particularly this winter); 20% quite acceptable and you can park on it and walk over it without getting covered in mud; and 20% superb, as it is hard standing and properly laid out.
• Signage to Owners & Trainers: sometimes good but often non-existent. My worst experience was going to a minor NH course when I followed the signs to the racecourse car park, only to be told that I’d come to the wrong car park and should have gone to another one, which of course hadn’t been signed at all. The wrong car park did however have an O&T entrance, but when I went there, they wouldn’t allow me in, as apparently I needed to go to the “other one” across the course. They wouldn’t let me through to go to the unsigned, correct one. I had to go back to the car, drive round and find the unsigned correct one and go through the whole process again. They then wouldn’t accept my wife as an owner at the O&T entrance, and the usual embarrassment started of proving who you were. The staff at O&T had obviously been through the same charm school as the car park attendants. The training had certainly been effective – it was consistently dreadful, rude behaviour.

The famous bloodstock agent, David Redvers, on his web site, has something called Redvers’ Rant. I’m obviously launching a new series to rival that called Hughes’s Horrors. Maybe I’ve just reached the age of Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave. If you hear someone ambling round the course muttering, “I just don’t believe it”, you’ll know it’s either David, Victor or me.

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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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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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Book the 2019 Dublin Racing Festival into your Diary – An Antidote to Dreary Winter Racing

At the beginning of February, my wife and I and a few owners went over to Ireland. Some went direct to Dublin while others went via County Tipperary, where we called in to see a couple of our youngsters who are being brought along superbly by P.J. Colville and his wife Grainne. It was probably a foretaste of what was to come when we were sitting in Mikey Ryan’s Bar and Restaurant (interestingly, owned and renovated by John Magnier, who apparently fancied a nice place in Cashel to have his supper), savouring a pint of Guinness at 7pm, watching the Ireland vs. France rugby game on TV. When Johnny Sexton slotted in his wonderful dropped goal to grab the game back from the French, the place absolutely erupted. Never have I been kissed by so many people in such a short period of time. The dinner wasn’t bad, either.

From then on, the weekend only got better. We went up to Leopardstown for Day 2 of the superb inaugural Dublin Racing Festival. Racing is always bandying around such phrases as “Sensational Saturday”, but this time the whole meeting lived up to it in spades. I don’t know about you, but I have felt that the 2017 / 18 NH season has been something of an anti-climax, with very few stand-out performances and lots of small field races being mopped up by Messrs. Henderson and Nicholls. An indication of that is the number of horses that Buveur D’Air has actually beaten, and his average starting price of about 1/5. There used to be a time when the Saturday NH meetings really did seem to be something to savour, with heroic performances from horses and riders. Somehow we seem to have lost that sparkle, with the whole of the season having shifted to an undue focus on the Cheltenham Festival. Horses aren’t racing against each other with the frequency that they used to, and it increasingly feels as though we’re just waiting for the denouement without really having enjoyed the lead up to it.

The Irish racing authorities seem to have felt the same, with a number of their better races spread over a period of weeks. They decided to consolidate the best races into the two-day Dublin Festival, and the competition and the craic were magnificent, with so many sparkling performances: Faugheen vs. Defi Du Seuil, Min vs. Yorkhill, Samcro vs. Sharjah, Footpad vs. Petit Mouchoir and then a fairytale outcome to the Irish Gold Cup with the “horse who came back from the dead” Edwulf putting in a gallant performance, although admittedly helped by the last fence fall by Killultagh Vic, who seemed to be travelling best of all. The Leopardstown stand erupted and it must have been 50 deep around the winner’s enclosure. It’s a long time since I’ve seen so many hats being thrown up into the air. It almost felt like going back in time to the great win of Dawn Run, which still stands in my memory as the most emotional and heart-felt reception for any NH horse. The whole atmosphere at Leopardstown was captivating – real enthusiasts, there to savour the racing rather than just the alcohol …. although there was a fair bit of that consumed as well.

Lots of English fans travelled over for the meeting. It was surprising though how few English trainers and horses made the journey, which is pretty unenterprising. Indeed the British trainer who gave the meeting the greatest support was Phil Kirby, and he doesn’t have many horses. Even stranger when you consider how many horses Nicholls and Henderson took up to Musselburgh on the same day, and stranger again when you consider the prize-money. Cheltenham Festival Trials Day only managed £204,688 of prize-money whereas Day 2 at Leopardstown was a whopping great €825,000, at an average of €103,000 per race and with prize-money often down to 8th. I’ve already said to all our trainers that if we have any horses suitable for this meeting next year, we’ll definitely make it the season’s target.

One of the themes discussed by the Brits in Ireland was whether we need to strengthen the British season with a similar high-profile mid-season festival. For some time there has been a debate about whether the Kempton King George meeting could be significantly upgraded, although the refrain seems to be that “logistical challenges” (whatever they may be) preclude it. That seems a real pity.

Anyway, a couple of weeks on from Ireland we were lucky enough to have a runner – and emphatic winner – at Newbury during Betfair Super-Saturday with Acey Milan (who may now go for the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham). The sponsorship of Betfair has brought in significant money, which we were lucky enough to participate in; the total on the day was £303,102. This triggered the thought that maybe Newbury and Betfair could work together to stage a Wonderful Weekend as a stepping-stone to Cheltenham. Indeed, as we were supping celebratory Champagne in the Royal Box after Acey’s victory, I floated this to a couple of the directors of Newbury and it definitely seemed to strike a chord.

As a postscript, I can only congratulate Newbury for the huge improvements that have been made at their course. Their spanking-new Owners’ Club is one of the best facilities on any British track and the investment all round the course from car parking to pre-parade has transformed the track. They have just started the second phase of their developments and Newbury must now be the course with the greatest improvement trajectory in our sport. A huge change is taking place, not just in investment and infrastructure, but just as importantly in mind-set. For those with a long memory I wrote a couple of scathing blogs about the course following a PR disaster in December 2013 (the link is to “Nonsense at Newbury”). The Chief Executive was fired shortly afterwards, to be replaced by Julian Thick, who can be commended for all the changes that have been made. Here’s hoping that they can put on a Wonderful Weekend – or maybe even two of them – so that they replicate Leopardstown’s Champions Weekend on the Flat as well as the Dublin Festival.

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 Turning of the Tide on Prize-Money in 2018 – New Year’s Resolutions Being Put Into Practice

Firstly, Happy New Year, and may it be a truly successful one with lots of winners for all our owners. May the horses all be happy, healthy and improvers. One of the horses we are closely involved in running – Buckle Street, with Martin Keighley and the Condicote Clan – definitely fits into that category, putting in a really game performance to win at Catterick over 3m 2f. That was a super Christmas present for all. While up there, a number of us had an excellent discussion over a beer with the BHA’s Chief Executive, Nick Rust, whose horse Paddling was also running. This horse won at Catterick the following week, so well done to Nick and his co-owners. Indeed, he was the first person to come up to me in the winner’s enclosure to congratulate the Clan.

During the discussion with him, he flagged up the imminent announcement that prize-money in Britain is likely to reach a record £160 million in 2018, an increase of £17 million from 2017. This is a really welcome development, particularly as it follows on from an autumn announcement that £8 million of central levy funding is being channelled into grass-roots racing. Readers of the blog will know that I believe raising prize-money is the number one issue in British racing, because without it the risk is that the sport is in a downward spiral, with owners not being attracted or retained, the number of horses in training declining, and through that a lack of competitiveness in the sport that is the lifeblood of gambling.

Although the discussion with Nick over a pint and a very unusual-coloured and flavoured Catterick lamb curry was anything but formal, his statement to the press on this announcement was rather more measured. He said: “It is very important for all those involved in our sport that we are due to see such significant prize-money increases in 2018. Although there has been a gradual recovery in total prize-money in recent years, driven by increased investment from racecourses, the returns to our sport’s owners and participants have not been sufficient, in particular to those who are not competing at the top echelons. The support we received from the government and, indeed, all political parties in establishing the new levy has been crucial and means that we can target support towards those operating at the racing’s grass roots. The increased prize-money on offer in 2018 does not resolve the sport’s prize-money situation outright, but it is a step in the right direction. We hope that this good news will serve as an incentive to racehorse owners who are thinking of putting horses in training, and provide a timely boost to jockeys, trainers and stable staff, who rely in part on prize-money for their livelihoods.”

I can only raise a glass to Nick and the BHA for both the extra money and the sentiments expressed. Having said that, there will probably be a wry smile on his face when he sees the prize-money summary after deductions on the next BHA or Weatherbys statement relating to Paddling’s win at Catterick, which as an independent is definitely not the most generous of courses with its prize-money.

At the same time as this announcement, a couple of racecourses also confirmed the way the tide is now flowing. A few years ago I took issue with Newbury on a number of fronts, and like to think that I was one of the pressure points for change that led to the previous CEO being dismissed. I have a lot more time for the latest CEO, Julian Thick, so was pleased to read that prize-money is set to exceed £5 million in 2018 following an injection of £250,000 by the racecourse. As a result, total prize-money at all the track’s 29 fixtures will amount to at least £50,000, with the feature race at three-quarters of all meetings offering £20,000. Thick commented to the press that: “As an independent racecourse, Newbury is committed to ensuring prize-money levels increase as and when we can afford to make additional investment, and 2018 will see a continuation of that policy with our own direct prize-money spend increasing …. Since 2013 we have increased our executive contribution by over £1 million and 2018 will see us break the £5 million mark for the first time …. This is a reminder of our commitment to reinvest in the sport, and complements well the substantial capital investment we’ve made on fabulous new facilities for horsemen in the past three years.”

Time therefore to raise the glass again to Julian and his team at Newbury. A couple of years ago we ran our horse Shantou Magic in the Challow Hurdle, and I complained strongly to Newbury that the prize-money was less than it had been ten years previously, so it is great to see a reversal in that trend. Also for those who haven’t been there recently, the new Owners’ Club is superb. Great to see this track being improved so radically, and it is now a course that owners really like to go to, even if the preponderance of “luxury executive apartments” is not to everyone’s taste.

Finally another glass to be raised to the very progressive Chief Executive of Perth, Hazel Peplinski, who is increasing their prize-money by 35% this year to nearly £1.25 million. That also includes a new appearance money scheme across their 15 fixtures with average prize-money per race increasing to £11,500 from £8,500, with the hope that it will stimulate a rise in field sizes. Personally I am going to do everything I can to support Perth this year and will be suggesting to our trainers that if we have suitable horses, we take them there.

I’m definitely a believer in credit where credit’s due, so it’s most encouraging to be able to start the year on a positive note on the prize-money front. Don’t worry, I’ll still be applying pressure on those tracks that don’t yet seem to have picked up the message that prize-money really matters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy 10th Birthday to Racing UK ….. Hopefully they will give much greater recognition to owners over the next ten years

Do you remember Rishi Persad’s opening remarks on the launch of Racing UK, back on 29th May 2004? I thought not. It was an interesting time for televised racing, because the first version of At The Races (ATR) had collapsed with the termination of their £307m, ten-year media rights contract, launched in 2001 with BskyB, Channel 4, Arena Leisure and 49 of Britain’s racecourses. ATR adopted the thuggish negotiating tactics (subsequently adopted by Arena Racing Company (ARC) and which have always been the default behaviour of bookmakers) of then threatening the racecourses that if they didn’t pay back the media money they had already received, they would be sued.

With hindsight, these threatening tactics jolted the key racecourses into a collaborative venture which must be regarded as one of the most successful in the racing industry’s history. Strong leadership from people such as David James (then Chairman of RHT Racehorse Holdings Trust – forerunner of Jockey Club Racecourses) and Simon Bazalgette (who became Racing UK’s Executive Chairman) led to the launch of RUK as a dedicated racing channel headed by Andrew Franklin (founder of the channel’s production partner, Highflyer). Despite a lot of early concerns, most of the top racecourses signed up, with Goodwood, Newbury, York and Cheltenham leading the way. It really was an excellent move, particularly with all profits being ploughed back into the sport. Racing UK’s parent company – Racecourse Media Group – delivered over £65m to racecourses in 2013, and the channel has at least 50,000 current subscribers.

Since then, we have seen BBC pull out of racing altogether and Channel 4 adopt a rather sterile approach to broadcasting with an unfortunate abandonment of some key personalities such as John Francome and Alastair Down, while ATR quite frankly irritates with its endless adverts for bookmakers and payday lenders while chopping and changing between the low-grade fare of all-weather and the lesser tracks.

Hats off to Racing UK on its birthday. Now for a challenge! Why is it that owners receive so little recognition from broadcasters? How often have you watched a magnificent performance, only to hear and see the horse referred to as “XYZ trainer’s horse”? No mention whatsoever of the owner. Equally, how often are you irritated by a microphone being thrust into the face of a jockey who has only just pulled up his horse and not yet had time to provide any debrief to the owner who is paying the bills? Indeed, the normal broadcaster behaviour is either to ignore the owner completely, or just push them away in the scramble to interview the trainer and jockey. I believe there should be a step change in behaviour in this area, with owners receiving much higher profile and proper recognition of their contribution to the sport.

I’m not arguing for that from an egomaniacal perspective – although on the one or two occasions I have been interviewed, I have enjoyed it – but I think it would really help the racing industry’s cause for both the racing fan and the broader public to understand the centrality of the owner as the number one stakeholder in the sport. Every year, owners are spending £0.5bn on their horses and almost £0.75bn if breeding and bloodstock are taken into account. Very few people understand that. Equally, I’m confident that there are many human interest stories and personalities across the owner community that should be nurtured as a way of bringing more excitement and variety into the rather formulaic TV broadcasts.

So, Racing UK – with your excellent interviewing and commentary team, could you please build more owner coverage into your programmes? Mention them more frequently in connection with their horses; include more background interviews with owners when you visit yards; seek out the human interest stories that bring the highs, lows, excitements and disappointments of owning to life; build a recorded bank of case studies relevant to the key races and weave them into your programming. Hopefully this will also engender more enthusiasm for new owners to enter the sport, and you can also illustrate innovation in horse partnership …. maybe by covering how Owners for Owners operates?!?

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 to Transform a Racecourse – What Advice Would You Give the New CEO at Newbury?

Had a really enjoyable day’s racing at Newbury last week on their Betfair Super Saturday. The personal highlight was being the guest of the Directors in the Royal Box for lunch and afternoon tea. They were kind enough to extend this invitation as an apology for the problems my wife and I encountered back at the Hennessy meeting due to their ill-advised dress code. You certainly get a very different picture of a racecourse through this privileged prism. I was also very lucky in being seated next to the Kimminses, who organise the Bob’s Worth partnership, and it was fascinating to hear about their life-changing experiences with this fabulous horse.

As you may know, Newbury has a new chief executive in Julian Thick, the former MD of Aintree, and he clearly has quite a challenge on his hands. I don’t in any way want to appear ungrateful to my luncheon hosts, and therefore the rest of this blog should be seen as a positive contribution. Newbury really ought to be one of the UK’s absolutely top tracks and yet I think it is now widely regarded as being a racecourse with serious problems. Indeed, on the At The Races’ Sunday Forum, the pundits including Alastair Down of the Racing Post and Alan Lee of The Times were discussing what they described as a “lacklustre” race day, not living up to its “Super Saturday” tag; as a course which has “lost people’s affections”; where the “rebranding is ridiculous” and there have been “loads of bad decisions in the past”. Their conclusion was that “something needs to be done”. No sitting on the fence there. It is also a course where attendance, and therefore revenues, are declining. Indeed, Alan Lee felt that without the injection of cash from the property development now under way, it is a course that “would be under threat of disappearing”.

So what would you do about it if you were the new CEO? As someone who could be described as “once a management consultant, always a management consultant”, here are a few of my thoughts.

1. Strengthen the management team: I have always had a view that “ships sink from the bridge”. Any unsuccessful business needs to make big changes in its leadership team. That is clearly recognised, hence Julian’s appointment. But it shouldn’t stop there. Build a different board structure. It could do with sharper accountabilities and a much stronger focus on modern marketing and customer acquisition and retention. Slim the board down. Change the governance. Set transformational goals.


2. Access high-quality advice: I would make this a centrepiece of a new governance structure. Have an executive and an advisory board, with different people in each. For the advisory board, select specialist advisers representing the different stakeholders in racing. Break away from the “traditional and tweedy” views that predominate at the moment.


3. Harness the current strengths: Newbury is much better at National Hunt racing than it is at the Flat. In the Hennessy and the Betfair (former Schweppes / Tote Gold Trophy) it has two of the strongest races in the calendar, as well as two excellent brands connected to the course. As anchor races / brands, they ought to provide real strength to bring in complimentary top-class sponsorship. Why not build the Hennessy around luxury premium brands and the Betfair around betting innovation? 


4. Revamp the failing Flat: the Greenham and the Lockinge ought to be much better races and meetings. At the moment they appear as second-tier events. Both could do with massive injection of additional prize-money and links to the next generation of sponsors, particularly if there is an even stronger Middle Eastern presence.


5. Be a technology leader: on the last blog there is a strong recommendation for a complete rethink of and investment in internet betting and social media. Why not make Newbury the showcase for all of that? Tune in to the advisers who can guide such a strategy.


6. Leverage Lambourn: just think of all the magnificent trainers and horses within 30 miles of Newbury. After all it is the second-largest training centre in the country, and many would argue that Newbury is one of the best and fairest courses around. How can this best be exploited?


7. Learn to love customers again: I’ve argued in earlier blogs this year that there is a tremendous need for modern marketing and selling strategies to be introduced that concentrate on securing, building and sustaining the right relationships across many customer segments. Stop antagonising them and begin nurturing them again.
   
8. Reorganise the different stands: rather than having an arbitrary dress code, why not encourage different customer groups / types to frequent different stands, with different badges and pricing. Try to build premiumisation into at least one stand – and make that a really great experience.


9. Change the pricing accordingly: have a complete range from genuine premium pricing through to free entry in at least one stand. Encourage local people to come along with their families and stop pricing them out of the sport.


10. Boost the prize-money: despite some races with very large prizes, the overall level of prize-money has dropped dramatically over the last decade. A Grade 1 track should have genuinely Grade 1 prize-money. Make it an unmissable destination. Start with a really valuable “consolations day” straight after the Cheltenham Festival. 

Phew. That’s my starter for ten. What would you recommend? All views welcome.

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.

Nonsense at Newbury, Part 2 – While The New Management Relents on the Dress Code, They Now Need to Take Stock of Broader Initiatives to Improve Racegoer Behaviour

Firstly, Happy New Year to all our owners, regular readers and anyone else who finds the time to read our blog. As always the resolutions remain the same – eat and drink less, exercise more, blah, blah, blah. The key one though is to go racing as often as possible and enjoy everything that’s fantastic about our sport.

In the last blog of 2013, I discussed the nonsense of Newbury’s dress code and the PR disaster that it turned out to be at the Hennessy meeting. My wife and I were personally involved in this, with a highly embarrassing incident to do with a brand new and ultra-modern blue cotton coat with leather flashings that was deemed to be flouting the rule against denim, despite Newbury having declared in their advance marketing publicity that “Racegoers are invited to prove that Britain knows best when it comes to Autumnal fashion, with fabulous hats and coats”. Nonsensically that came to be translated as “Newbury’s stewards know best when it comes to applying inflexible and arbitrary rules on dress”.

The following week I had a lengthy discussion with the then joint managing director Stephen Higgins, who did everything possible to deal with our criticism and actually impressed with his commitment to “rebuild trust with the racecourse”. I am going to have a face-to-face meeting with the Newbury management fairly soon, and they have also invited my wife and me to lunch in the Royal Box – that should definitely see a couple of the New Year resolutions kicked into touch.

Encouragingly, on Tuesday, 17th December (a couple of days after I posted the last blog), the new Chief Executive, Julian Thick, announced that the controversial dress code, designed to encourage racegoers to “embrace a stylish but relaxed approach”, was being reviewed. The rules that caused the controversy on Hennessy day decreed that in the Premier Enclosure “smart trousers (no denim) are the order of the day for gentlemen, with a jacket preferred”, while women were required to wear “dresses or skirts of modest length, or smart trousers”. Jeans were banned. They now intend temporarily to relax the strictly enforced criteria and “smart jeans” will be tolerated while the overall policy is reviewed. As I said in the last blog, it is barely credible that a mature woman wearing a new blue trilby (bought at Haydock Park), a similarly new, ultra-modern blue cotton and leather coat (bought at Cheltenham Racecourse) and equally brand-new black trousers, could be deemed by the Newbury style police to be in breach of the rules. My wife was most definitely not alone in all of this, and the adverse publicity in both national and trade press must have seriously damaged the new branding that “The Racecourse, Newbury” appears to be trying to develop.

Let’s look at some of the broader implications. Everyone wants to ensure that more people come racing, and that they thoroughly enjoy the experience, so that our sport can build increasingly self-sustaining revenues while broadening the overall customer base, particularly so that it appeals to the next generation of racegoers. Alas, there have been a number of unpleasant incidents involving drunken oafs fighting on racecourses over the last year or two, and a particularly unpleasant episode occurred at Newbury between two competing groups of football supporters. Therefore initiatives designed to improve, modify or change behaviour in some defined way are all to the good. But this is obviously extremely challenging, whereas framing and applying inflexibly a dress code is relatively easy to enforce, even if it does nothing at all to change the offensive behaviour. As one of the TV commentators stated, “a drunken oaf in a shiny black suit is still an oaf”.

Very few, if any, racecourses in the winter apply such rules as Newbury was trying to introduce. Clearly a number of Flat meetings, notably Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood, apply very strict dress codes in designated enclosures. According to Steve Higgins, Newbury had taken soundings from racegoers before introducing the rules and there appeared to be enthusiasm for “raising standards”. I suspect the question should have been framed much more tightly, such as: “Do you feel that it is more important for Newbury to reduce the incidence of unpleasant and intrusive drunken behaviour, or that we should impose a dress code and ban denim?” While this may be an artificial forced choice, I think we all know what people’s preferences would be. It is reducing boorish, drunken behaviour on racetracks that really matters, rather than antagonising denim-wearers, many of whom have spent a considerable amount of money on designer clothes.

Equally, there is nothing wrong with trying to encourage people to wear smarter clothes, but the challenge for Newbury is how best to do that if, indeed, it is deemed to be a critical branding and customer relationship initiative.

So what should Newbury, and other racecourses, do next – if anything? Do let me hear your views and I’ll continue with this theme in the next blog.