The Seven Sins of Racecourses and a Segway into Grass-Roots Owning Optimism

When preparing for this blog I had a think about the worst ownership experiences that I’ve endured. I remember back in management consulting days that for some unknown reason everyone talked about the “seven secrets of success”, so I thought I would build this blog around “seven sins of sloppy, surly service”. Regular readers of this blog will know that I suffer from the irritating habit of a love of alliteration – one of Hughes’ horrible habits. Maybe there should be an Owners for Owners award, and I’m definitely open to suggestions as to what the prize should be. I’ve done them in alphabetical sequence.

Catterick and its meal vouchers: on New Year’s Day my wife and I trekked all the way up to Catterick to watch Future Gilded win – which was fabulous. They had run out of meal vouchers. “Don’t worry”, they said at the O&T Desk, “they’ll see you right”. I went off to enjoy an exquisite Catterick lunch, queued for ages and then was refused service. Back to O&T desk. Still no vouchers and was told to go back and mention the name of the attendant. Back to the queue. Still a refusal to serve me. Sent off to “the Office”. They found me a voucher. Third time lucky, back to the queue. Bingo – served a beautiful, cold, gristly bap. A delightful owner experience.

Ludlow and its Owners’ & Trainers’ Admission: off to Ludlow for the first time and followed signs to the car park, then to the Owners’ & Trainers’ entrance on the inside of the track. Bounded in and presented my PASS card, they commented, “We don’t see many of them”. Told that I was at the wrong entrance – despite the sign. Equally told that I was in the wrong car park, and to get into the “right” one I’d have to drive back out again and proceed some distance to the other side of the course. However they relented and let me in. The first of our owners I bumped into on the course hadn’t been so lucky and had been asked to pay. Fortunately I had printed a copy of the email I had sent to the course listing the names of the owners who would be there. Again I was sent to “the Office” to clarify the situation. Their response was that they hadn’t received the email. Funny that. Every time I go to “the Office” brandishing an email, I’m told they hadn’t had it.

Plumpton and its Owners’ car park: arrived at the Sussex Riviera in a monsoon, tried to park the car, pointing to the ROA badge on the windscreen. The attendant refused to acknowledge it and wanted to see “the badge”. He made me get out of the car to find it in the boot. It wasn’t a badge but the PASS card he wanted. Allowed to park in the middle of a swamp. As with Ludlow I’d followed the signs correctly but arrived at the “wrong” car park.

Southwell and the winner’s room hospitality: half a dozen owners and friends travelled up to Southwell for the last race on the card. The horse won and we were taken to the winner’s room to celebrate with a glass of fizz. We were given the smallest quantity of champagne that I’ve ever received and, like Oliver Twist, I dared ask for more. After receiving another thimble full, the jobsworth then raised his arm, pointed to his watch and said, “Drink up, I’ve got a home to go to”. Charming.

Wincanton and prize-money: like many tracks, Wincanton is inclined to put the money into one or two races at the expense of the others, so the prize-money is derisory. Our horse came 4th in a really competitive, 17-runner handicap hurdle that will have driven a tremendous amount of Levy money. Our return? £238.

Wolverhampton and its lino: as far as I’m concerned, the least enjoyable race track in the world. To stand on its artificially surfaced paddock on a wet Wednesday evening in mid-winter is as dire as it gets.

Worcester and “family fun” days: what a dread phrase! Probably only rivalled by its “Ladies’ Day”, a term used extremely generously to describe the participants. A most awful experience.

And yet, despite all of this, I adore going racing and am still optimistic about the sport – which is where the segway comes in (or segue, as my wife would have it). There was a really encouraging announcement recently that grass-roots racing is going to receive an extra £9.7m in 2018 as the BHA tries to halt a decline in the number of horses taking part in races at Class 4-6 level. Richard Wayman, the Chief Operating Officer for the BHA, stated encouragingly that: “Although there has been growth in total prize-money in recent years, much of this has been at the top end. The returns to our sport’s participants further down the scale are simply not sufficient at present to be sustainable. Targeting grass roots with extra funding will help racing’s participants to maintain their involvement in the sport and keep more horses in training.” Hear, hear.

I’ll raise a glass of Champagne to this, while eating a pork bap on a family fun day on my next racecourse visit, once I’ve found the correct car park and been allowed on to the course. Champion!

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Welcoming the Director of Common Sense, and Future Gilded’s Novice Chasing Case

Over the last few weeks there have been quite a few announcements of some excellent appointments at the very top of racing. The old adage is that ships either float or sink from the bridge, and Steve Harman, BHA Chairman, is to be congratulated for showing a steely resolve to make sure that racing has a much broader leadership cadre, combining not just in-depth racing expertise but stronger business and commercial acumen. This is all part of putting in place a growth strategy for racing that is essential if the sport is to compete properly with all the other leisure sectors and racing territories. Indeed it says a lot about racing in the past that this will be the first ever proper strategy. Really looking forward to seeing the detail as it emerges in 2015.

However, Owners for Owners is probably the only organisation that is aware that a top-secret appointment has been made, yet to be announced – racing’s first ever Director of Common Sense. Any business sector or organisation can easily become process-bound and overly constrained by the letter of the law on its rules and regulations. We have seen a number of instances over the autumn where relatively minor episodes have an very negative impact on the public perception of the sport. If the day’s top jumps meeting suddenly finds that its best race is in jeopardy because of sunlight, it only makes sense to move it on the day so that it is run as a proper spectacle rather than a strange mish-mash of jumping and flat racing as numerous fences are bypassed by sticking to the same race time. If there is a minor infringement due to a flag man inadvertently waving the wrong flag (obviously fully acknowledging the need for jockeys to be vigilant and never to ignore the potential dangers of disobeying flag instructions), then let the race result stand and don’t overly punish the jockeys through lengthy bans. Racing wants to see its superstar jockeys over the Christmas holiday period, and banning someone such as Richard Johnson for the duration takes away a lot of public interest. Indeed, I think banning is a dubious punishment anyway. Hitting jockeys’ pockets really hard would probably be far more persuasive, and could be flexed to suit the circumstances of the rider.

So a warm welcome to the new appointee, and I can tell you now that the diary is likely to be very full. Indeed, with having this inside information, we have already lined up an important test case of Future Gilded (known as “Frankie” by his friends) vs. The Handicapper. Trainers and owners are finding the new novice / novice handicap chase regulations quite difficult to come to terms with, and I suspect it is likely that they will be tweaked again before too long. It is possible now for a horse to go into a novice handicap chase and run off his current officially-rated hurdle mark. This is a good innovation, because otherwise he would have to race against potential superstars from the Nicholls and Henderson yards in novice chases. Come up against a 150+ horse, run a fine race to come 2nd, 3rd or 4th and your handicap mark is probably blown for ever.

Eighteen months ago, Owners for Owners bought the gorgeous Frankie at our favourite sales venue, Arqana in Deauville. He had won his only race, over hurdles at Aix-les-Bains, and we knew that he wouldn’t be eligible as a result for novice hurdles in his first season with us. He would have gone into handicap hurdles, but for sustaining a slight tendon injury that meant he was on the sidelines until now. He’s a gorgeous, big, strong horse, made for chasing, which is where we’re going with him. We entered him in a handicap hurdle to get a mark, and have now got one – 117. Unfortunately though, when we then considered entering him for a novice handicap chase, we were told he is not eligible “due to the rules”, and that he would have to go handicap hurdling for three races first. Because he must have soft ground, and jumps fences far better than hurdles, this is the last thing we want him to do. He spent the whole autumn building his strength steadily and having regular scans to ensure the tendon has been sound, so it has taken until mid-December to have him ready to make his debut for us. If we go down the hurdling route, the risk will be that we lose the ground before all three races can be run, and then another season has gone. So the only option available to us is to go novice chasing ….. with the attendant risk of coming up against a potential super-star. Our trainer has spoken to the handicapper, who admittedly is sympathetic, but can’t do anything to help us. So we are running today at Plumpton in the 12:40. Do watch it and cheer on Fabulous Frankie. And if I see the new Director of Common Sense, I’ll be arguing my case with him in the O&T bar.

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.