The Tesco Approach: “Every Little Helps” – But will extending prize-money down to 6th increase frequency of running horses, and as a result, field sizes?

We received a letter recently from Ruth Quinn, Director of Racing at the BHA, informing Owners for Owners that as part of the agreement on the 53rd levy scheme, the four largest retail bookmakers (William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral and Betfred) have made additional voluntary contributions of £4.5m on top of their statutory levy payments for 2014/15. As a result, a total of £5m (the extra £0.5m coming from the Levy Board) is being injected into extending prize-money from 1st December 2014.

Basically, in some Class 2 to Class 6 races, place-money will go down to either 6th or 8th, with payments of between £200 and £400 paid on top of existing prize-money. This will ensure, in eligible races, that every horse finishing down to 8th in a Class 2 or 6th in other classes down to Class 6 will receive at least £400 or £200 in prize-money respectively.

Why is this being done? Initially, I thought it was purely for the obvious reason of providing additional prize-money for owners, and particularly providing additional reward for placed horses. As readers of the blog will know, I’ve advocated for some time that there should be much greater focus on placed horses, both in terms of prize-money and the whole owner experience, with racecourses being encouraged to acknowledge the performance of these horses even though they haven’t won or even come in the first three or four.

My second initial reaction was that while really appreciating the additional money, it is still unlikely in many instances to cover the costs of sending a horse to the racecourse. In another blog I mentioned a horse I was involved in, who ran really well at Wincanton in a 17-runner handicap to finish 4th, but where the prize-money was still only £238.50. When you consider the NH jockey fee of £161, riders’ insurance £21, entry fee of say £50, transport of c. £300, lads’ expenses of £50, racing plates at £70 plus my own costs of driving to the course and back of £50, then the total is more like £700. While enjoying the day out at Wincanton (which is one of my favourite tracks), the returns are clearly out of kilter with the costs ….. even with an additional £300 if the race was eligible for the new extension in prize-money (which it wasn’t).

So I decided to contact Ruth Quinn to seek her views. Interestingly from her replies to me it is now clear that the main logic of the extension to prize-money is actually all about trying to impact owner behaviour so that horses are run more frequently. Increasing the number of runs per horse could help significantly improve the overall competitiveness of British racing, boost field sizes and betting turnover etc.

Paul Bittar, former CEO of the BHA, was a strong advocate of owners running horses more frequently. Personally I think this is a complete non-starter, as do our trainers. Surely we all run our horses as often as makes sense for the horse, taking into account their wellbeing, suitability of going, race targets etc. Would I really encourage my trainers to run a horse more frequently, purely because there is a possibility of picking up an extra £200-400 of place-money – and equally, would they advocate the same?

Notwithstanding the point raised above that even if I did run I’d be losing money, but the horse would be unable to run for at least another three weeks. Let’s say the horse ran well and came 4th in an eligible class 4, I’m still only going to win a maximum of about £600, but with the cost of those three weeks’ training fees and all the running costs coming to, say, £1,500, I end up in an even worse position being £900 out of pocket.

If anyone can see a flaw in my logic, do please let me know! If there isn’t such a flaw, then why on earth do the racing authorities believe that owner behaviour can be influenced by such paltry amounts of money?

I’m going to be very interested indeed to see how the scheme works, and whether it does have any behavioural impact. As you can see from this note, I remain deeply sceptical and, I have to say, rather perturbed that there appears to be such a huge gap in thinking and practicalities between trainers / owners and those who want (quite rightly) to improve the competitiveness of British racing. Surely this scheme can’t be part of the solution ….. even though I always welcome every little increase in prize-money.

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.

Mahmood al-Zarooni: Summary Execution in High Holborn

In my more erudite days, before reading Timeform annuals took over, I used to enjoy the Penguin Modern Classics. A novel that had a big impact on me as a student was Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, about a Bolshevik prisoner, Rubashov, as he awaits death in a GPU prison. Darkness and the whiff of cordite definitely descended over the British Horseracing Authority’s offices in High Holborn throughout the last ten days. With almost indecent haste, the BHA investigation panel summarily terminated Mahmood al-Zarooni’s training career, at least for the next eight years, following the sensational disclosures that eleven out of 45 Godolphin horses tested positive for steroids on 9th April. If there were volunteers to man the firing squad, I’m sure that Sheikh Mohammed, Paul Bittar (CEO of the BHA), Rod Street (CEO of Racing Enterprises Limited and leader of Great British Racing), Chris McFadden (Chairman of REL) and Simon Bazalgette (Group CEO of the Jockey Club) would definitely have taken a big stride forward. Indeed, the dazed look on Godolphin racing manager Simon Crisford’s face during TV interviews tempted one to think he was already loading the bullets into the Smith & Wesson. Whether that was to use on al-Zarooni or himself is only conjecture. As the wrath of Sheikh Moh is felt across racing, there are bound to be others in the firing line.

First reports indicated a clear, open-and-shut breach of the rules, with al-Zarooni admitting that he had made a “catastrophic error” by administering steroids. Traces of ethylstranol (a steroid often used by body-builders) and stanozolol (which cost Ben Johnson his Olympic gold medal) were found in the horses (including Certify, one of the favourites for the 1000 Guineas), and they have now been ruled out of competition until 9th October. Both steroids are prohibited substances under British rules of racing and cannot be used at any time on licensed premises for horses in full-time training or out of competition. Within the space of a week, al-Zarooni was investigated, sentenced and banished, with the BHA deciding that it was very much in the best interests of racing to sort out the matter as quickly as possible. Full marks to them on that, even though there are inevitably many questions still to be answered.

Alas though, only a couple of days later another bombshell dropped when it was announced that Gerard Butler had been medicating the injured joints of some of his horses with Sungate, which also contains stanozolol. That was discovered on a BHA sampling visit to his yard on 20th February. Butler himself spoke to the press about this, and made a highly controversial assertion, now being investigated, that over 100 horses across various yards in Newmarket had been similarly treated. The firing squad rifles could soon be overheating.

In the next blog I will examine a number of the questions and issues in more detail. But where does all this leave “brand racing”? One of the jargon words often bandied around by those of a marketing bent is the creation of “narratives”. There are probably three that can be readily identified, and which have certainly been well aired at the various parish pumps of racing over the last week.

1.   Straightest racing in the world: no-one applies a zero tolerance policy like the Brits. We have the best and cleanest racing in the world. Doping doesn’t exist. Inevitably a few accidents occur, and we punish the guilty parties with a ruthlessness that other countries ought to be applying.

2.   It’s all a muddle: how on earth can trainers be expected to know what chemical actives are in sophisticated veterinary compounds, or what the precise regulations are in different countries? If they act on the advice of their vets, then who is accountable for mistakes? It is all too confusing. We need much clearer guidelines and global harmonisation.

3.   We’re no different to cycling: scratch the surface of racing and you will find that doping is endemic. The old adage that “good trainers don’t change their methods, they just change their vets” is as true now as it has ever been. It is just that everyone has become more sophisticated in keeping ahead of the regulator.

I fear that the public view sits squarely with the third narrative. So to lighten the gloom: I heard a joke that the BHA should have known what was going on when one of al-Zarooni’s horses won the Tour de France.

Ethics and integrity have always been a strategic priority. It has rocketed back to the top of the agenda. More on this subject next time.

A Horse Called “UKRacingStratPlan” (?!?)

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

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

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

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

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

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