Join the Hundred-Day Campaign and Make the Racing Industry Produce, Publish and Implement a Racing Recovery Plan to Retain Owners in the Sport

Please download the Blueprint
for a Racing Recovery Plan

One of the few plus-points of lockdown was that it gave a friend and owner, Ged Shields, and me time to research and write A Blueprint for Racehorse Ownership in the UK: Making retention and acquisition of owners the number 1 goal of a Racing Recovery Plan. It was launched in the Racing Post on 12th July and is now being driven forward by a campaign with a web site, video interviews, blogs and social media. Full details are on www.keepownersinracing.com and @keepownersinra1. This was our launch press release:

Please join the campaign and encourage
friends to do so as well

A hard rain is about to fall on our sport from the economic storm, triggered by the pandemic, and will continue for several years. It will rip through the weakest parts of the racing pyramid and sink without trace many trainers, breeders, owners, syndicators, betting shops and some racecourses. The pandemic is acting as a kind of “time machine” rushing racing’s outmoded business models to the end phase of a process that was always likely to happen.

Many staff will lose their jobs and equine welfare challenges increase as racehorses are retired, sold or “moved on”. No part of the industry will go untouched and the only question to be answered, in time, is the scale of contraction.

Why are we so depressingly confident in this assertion? Since the Resumption of Racing on 1st June we have spent five weeks researching the sport’s economic map and the financial interconnections of the supply chain from breeders to bookmakers. We’ve reflected on our own investment in the sport and the way we are currently being treated. We have been committed owners since 2004 with 132 winners so far and a current involvement in 39 horses covering everything from Flat to jumps, sole ownership to syndicates and foals to veterans. We use ten trainers across the country and ownership is by far the major drain on our discretionary expenditure. We will inevitably be part of the contraction that is coming but will do everything possible to mitigate its impact.

How far we personally retrench will be determined by how well racing’s leadership handles the next phase of the crisis and whether they are prepared to drive through a number of long overdue changes to the sport. We’ve highlighted our own Agenda for Action, as a blueprint for racing recovery, containing five strategies and twenty specific recommendations reflecting our data-driven analysis of the sport. It can be downloaded from the www.keepownersinracing.com home page.

Why did we produce it? Because of our deepening concern that the post-pandemic economic impact, racing’s tendency for stakeholders to fall out and fight each other rather than focus on the task ahead and the frustration of owners at how they are treated will lead to a significant contraction in ownership with a hugely damaging impact on the industry.

Encouragingly, we were impressed by the 100-day stakeholder truce and the collaborative approach adopted by the Resumption of Racing Work Group before normal hostilities returned. Huge changes to the pattern, fixture list, prize-money allocation and safety procedures were adopted. We applaud their efforts and feel it is vital that racing extends this endeavour to a new Recovery of Racing Group focused on the retention and acquisition of owners as the top priority. They should consider carefully our Blueprint’s headline messages:

1. Learn from the last financial crisis: without a Recovery of Racing Plan, contraction in ownership and horses in training will be far worse than after 2008 / 09 when there was a straight decline in numbers for seven years. We predict a loss of 20% of owners (2,244) and 15% of horses (3,531): an immediate financial impact of £124m.
2. The damage is done by the multiplier: for every £1 spent by owners, £7 is generated across the industry for bookmakers, breeders, sales houses, trainers and racecourses. This multiplier amplifies the £124m loss to racing to a significantly more damaging £868m.
3. Owners bankroll the sport: in 2019 / 20 they spent £527m on training fees and lost a collective £428m. This excludes the £145m spent (and mostly lost) on bloodstock (excluding Horses in Training sales). For every pound spent on training fees the median return was 8p on the Flat and 6p for National Hunt. It will be even worse in 2020 as prize-money declines further. This is unsustainable and increasingly drives owners out of the sport.
4. The trend is not racing’s friend: racing faces strong headwinds this decade due to economic contraction, owner demographics and the need to rebuild personal and company balance sheets. The average age of owners is over 60 with substantial numbers over 70. Most are extremely concerned about Covid-19 and wary of going racing. This inhibits further any desire to continue investing in racehorses.
5. Be radical in response: racing needs a recovery plan that retains and attracts owners as the prime goal for the next five years. There is no time to lose. Racing can address this in one of two ways. Option one is to deny the scale of the challenge, massively underestimate its impact, muddle through with divided leadership, claim that it is already doing things and avoid making difficult decisions, keeping fingers crossed and hoping the “old normal” returns soon. It won’t. Option two is to embrace radical change, form a coalition of all the stakeholders and drive forward wide-ranging responses that create the “next normal”. We urge British Racing to adopt option two. It is not short of the talent to do this, but they tend to operate in isolation and seem focused on narrow stakeholder interests that are often in competition with the others.

Stakeholders need to come together, put their disputed issues on the table and find sufficient common ground to implement the necessary initiatives, such as those outlined in this Blueprint. We have made our “call to arms” and now challenge the industry to develop and communicate a Recovery of Racing Plan within the next 100 days.

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.

The New Year’s Resolution for the Racehorse Owners Association Should Be to Publish the Long-Awaited Industry Ownership Strategy. Then Come Up with Ways to Incentivise Owners to Increase their Involvement.

For the last two years I have been pressing the ROA to produce and publish the Industry Ownership Strategy for which they received £1.65m of funding from the Racing Foundation. There has still been no sign of it, and I’m just hoping that the powers-that-be in Holborn have this output high up their list of New Year’s resolutions.

While they dilly and dally, ownership is in decline. Indeed, sole ownership has been declining for ten years, while the age profile of owners has been only increasing. As the prime investing stakeholder in the sport, it is absolutely vital that new owners are brought into the game, while retaining the current ones. At the heart of the Industry Ownership Strategy there has to be a commitment to promoting shared ownership through syndicates, and that needs both resources to run national marketing campaigns and the creation of incentives designed to prompt owners to increase their involvement.

There has been a lot of discussion during 2019 about how to deal with the increasing numbers of owners within the facilities of the racecourses. As syndicates increase in number and in size, a much greater strain has been placed on O&T facilities. Racecourses only really have two options available: they can increase provision and / or restrict access. It is quite likely during 2020 that racecourses, individually or collectively, will adopt one of two solutions. Either they will introduce a tiering of owner privileges (rather like First Class and Business Class lounges on airlines) or they will start to offer a “package” of benefits whereby, for example, a syndicate can trade off free lunches for additional badges.

I’m sure a number of these blogs will be devoted to this subject because it has potential for unintended consequences. For example, racecourses could be tempted to treat owners as first-class or second-class citizens with sole owners “up in first class” and syndicates and partnerships “down the back of the plane”.

What is really needed is a much more thoughtful approach which actually incentivises owners to increase their involvement in order to access different tiers of benefits, which I believe is the model used in Australia. Basically the more horses / shares in horses you own (and the greater your economic contribution to racing), the greater the benefits that you enjoy. It also has to be emphasised that, at the moment, racing has no real insight into that economic contribution. So, for example, there are many syndicate owners who have multiple shares in horses but there is no way for racing to pick that up and respond to them as to more valuable sole owners. It is essential in an ownership strategy that this capability is developed and applied across the whole ownership base, and that requires a different registration process, ownership IDs and technology platforms to support it. However, none of that process / technology is particularly innovative, and has been in use in the retail and airline sectors for thirty years or more. Racing is well behind the wave on this, but the good news is that none of the systems required are particularly complex and should not be expensive to introduce.

At the same time, such a registration process would remove the potential abuses such as those encountered by one of our owners through his involvement in the Supreme Racing Club. Ged Shields recently had a letter published on the subject in the Racing Post, and it is worth reproducing it in full below:

“As one of the many victims of the Supreme Horse Racing overselling scandal I think its long overdue that the racing authorities in the UK and Ireland introduce an owners’ registration system that is fit for purpose. The current approach is hopelessly inadequate. Obviously.

Since the scandal broke, we’ve heard the BHA and ROA and other bodies making the case for syndicate operators to sign up to strengthened codes of conduct and suggesting some sort of licensing scheme may be the answer. The blunt truth is that neither suggestion would have prevented the Supreme situation.

What we need is a transparent online share register that allows owners, no matter what size of share, to check their share has been registered and the combined ownership shares for each horse. So, for example, John Smith can see he has been registered for 5% in Horse A , 10% in Horse B etc and then when he clicks on Horse A he can see his 5% and the % shares other owners have in the same horse. He doesn’t need to know the names of the other owners so GDPR shouldn’t be an issue. He just needs to see his share has been registered accurately and that the combined shares in the horse don’t add up to more than 100%. This kind of online platform would allow owners themselves to police the share register of the horses they are involved in and would have prevented the overselling undertaken by Supreme Horse Racing. It would represent a huge improvement on the current system.

As racehorse owners we invest thousands in the sport and deserve a registration system that works much harder to protect our investment. This needs to become a top priority for the racing authorities in the UK and Ireland and there is no sensible reason why it should not be implemented in a matter of months. I hope for once they will act quickly.”

All of this shows the urgent need for an Industry Ownership Strategy that is genuinely innovative, and backed up by detailed operational plans required to introduce these much-needed changes. It has taken the ROA almost two years to produce very little, and yet a number of owners with whom I am regularly in contact could readily create the framework of the strategy during the course of a long dinner and a few bottles of fine wine. And British Racing would have received a lot of change from its £1.65m. Indeed, my view is that unless there is progress quickly, this strategic initiative should be taken away from the ROA and put in the hands of a new industry leadership group with the insights, motivation and skills to do something about it. In short, ROA – get on with it or move out of the way.

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.

“Icebergs Ahoy!”, but are the Officers on the Bridge of the Titanic Looking Through the Wrong End of the Telescope? More Views on the Ownership Strategy.

Just back from a super, relaxing holiday in the relatively isolated north-west of Tenerife. If you like golf, do go and stay at the Hacienda del Conde and play golf at the Seve Ballesteros course at Buenavista. While there, I read a bit about the island and I certainly wasn’t aware that Horatio Nelson didn’t just lose a sea battle off Santa Cruz, but it is also where he lost his arm. Apparently it was a battle he should never have lost – it was all down to complacency, not marshalling his resources properly, incomplete information and the wrong analysis of the situation. A bit like British racing, as you’ll see in this blog.

I kept my eye on a number of racing topics (I know, I should get out on the golf course more), and once again the strategic snail of the ownership strategy caught my attention, largely through an article in the Racing Post written by Jonathan Harding. For over a year I’ve been frustrated about the lack of clarity and progress on this strategy even though, apparently, the budget for it is now £1.66m, with the Levy Board alone contributing £790,000. The only way to gauge whether we’re getting value for money from this substantial investment will be the outputs from the study, and its impact on the attraction of new owners into the sport while retaining current ones. A coherent strategic plan still hasn’t been issued, and it does look as though the ROA is just tinkering around with the Titanic’s deckchairs. Where is the over-arching strategic vision? What are the major strategic priorities being addressed? What are the strategic goals and specific objectives that can be measured over a 1 / 3 / 5 / 10-year time horizon? What are the detailed and targeted initiatives to be deployed, and what are the resource implications for the industry? None of these questions have been properly addressed. Apparently there will be a communication exercise in the autumn and nothing would give me greater pleasure than putting ticks in all the boxes, and seeing the Titanic steer away from the icebergs unscathed.

Most worryingly, the Racing Post article stated that the strategy is all about “evolution not revolution”. The ROA has prioritised retaining owners over actively recruiting them, and that sort of one-eyed strategy appears to be gross neglect. Also, they have chosen to treat prize-money as a separate issue, and again that is flabbergasting. Just keep moving those deckchairs around …..

It’s not as though the icebergs aren’t big, prominent, ugly and frightening:

• Sole owners are in significant decline, down from around 7,000 to 5,000 in the last ten years.
• There are now more owners aged over 80 than under 40.
• The returns to owners are dreadful, with 73% of those owners receiving less than £2,500 per year, due to both the quantum of prize-money and its allocation. It is far too concentrated at the top tier of the sport, which benefits hugely anyway from ongoing stud value.
• The betting industry is hurting. For example, William Hill’s profits are down 33% with 700 betting shops likely to close by the end of the year.
• Racecourses are increasingly forecasting “significant risk of falling income” and almost inevitably reduced prize-money as a result. Newbury, which already has woeful prize-money for the quality of its racing, issued a note to that effect.
• While Logician put in a superb performance in the St Leger (for a £700,000 pot, the second-most valuable British Classic after the Derby), throughout the festival there were many under-subscribed races, which wasn’t surprising in view of the poor prize-money. Day 1 had a meagre £149k and the last two races on Leger day were 0-110 handicaps with prize-money between £12,450 and £15,562, whereas similar races at the York Ebor festival were worth £70k. Owners and trainers are voting with their feet / hooves. Those two races at Doncaster had three and two runners respectively.

And yet the ownership strategy isn’t examining initiatives to bring new owners into the game, nor to boost the prize-money to sustain it. This beggars belief.

Meanwhile, of course, it is very different elsewhere in the world. The new Saudi Cup, to be staged on 29th February 2020 at the King Abdulaziz Racetrack in Riyadh will be the richest ever race, at US$20m. Even the undercard has US$7m of prize-money. The Times has a view that we are now going to see a “high-rollers’ triple crown”, with trainers targeting this race along with the Pegasus in the US, worth £7.4m, and the Dubai World Cup at £9.9m.

Oh, to be a high-roller operating at the platinum end of racing, whether globally or in the UK. For them, life is rich and rosy, and indeed the ROA’s magazine, Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder, reinforces that view with all the top trainers, horses breeders and owners being feted and now has pages of over-priced “fashion” drivel as well. It would be a nice magazine to read in the lounges of the Titanic, maybe alongside a copy of the ROA’s ownership strategy, when it finally makes its appearance.

Icebergs ahoy! Do we have any lifeboats?

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.

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.

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.

Dealing with “Non-Runners” – Not a Non-Issue but Not a Nuclear One, Neither – Part 1, The Proposals

Firstly, apologies for the poor grammar of the heading. Shocking from a former Head Boy of Chester City Grammar School, where I first developed my passion for racing. Many a so-called private study afternoon was spent on the Roodee. Indeed, as a leading question into today’s blog, how many readers remember the redoubtable Pee Mai? Although they didn’t exist in the early 1970s, this horse was a veritable ATM for me. The poor horse was completely blind in his right eye, so his trainer would run him on right-handed tracks to get the weight down, then switch him on to the left-handed track of Chester. Usually starting at double-figure prices, if he had a low draw he would go round the running rail like a greyhound and was unstoppable. On the other hand, if he was drawn high it was funny how he seemed to develop a snuffle or cough on the morning of the race and was withdrawn. Or there was a convenient stone for him to step on.

That trend of non-runners at Chester, and similar tracks such as Beverley, is just one contributing factor that has disturbed the officer’s mess of British racing. In the middle of the dog-days of August, the spirit of collaboration and consensus of our sport’s tripartite structure blew up. Captain Wayman, gallant and dapper, of the BHA put forward ten proposals to curb the curse of late withdrawals. Such a reasonable chap as ever, his proposals were described as “proportional, balanced and targeted”. They had no sooner been launched than a huge barrage was fired off from Lieutenant Liverton of the ROA, decidedly hot under the collar. “The protection of the welfare of its horses and people” must come first. In waded Padre Arnold of the NTF with cautious support. Before you could blink, the tin hats were on again, with Corporal “Clot” Clare of Corals sniping between the eyes with audacious comments such as: “What business would be happy to deliver such major and costly customer dissatisfaction so frequently? Only a business that is happy to decline in popularity ….” Not to be outdone, up popped Sapper Dale Gibson of the PJA demanding that trainers were taken away and bull-whipped, and requiring owners to pay for jockeys who had lost their rides on the day. Mutineer Mottershead of the Racing Post, as usual, went right over the top (but not the trenches) and questioned whether the whole regulatory tripartite structure of the BHA should be reviewed.

Crikey! What on earth triggered this bombardment of bluster? Actually it is a pretty serious issue and not as straightforward necessarily as it looks. I’ll deal with some of the issues in Part 2 of the blog. Here is the context: since 2016, there has been an 8% rise in the number of non-runners. Three categories account for 90% of absentees after declaration time: self-certificates (from trainers), vet’s certificates, and withdrawals due to going changes. While the “vast majority of trainers operate within the spirit of the rules” (Wayman), that is clearly not always the case. In 2016 there were 8,393 non-runners equating to 8.56% of all declarations. So, to deal with this, ten proposals have been made:

1. The BHA will publish tables showing individual trainer non-runner rates from the previous 12 months at the end of each quarter.
2. Any trainer with more than 100 declarations in the period with a non-runner rate above a published threshold percentage (namely 50% above the average non-runner rate) will be suspended from using self-certificates for 12 months.
3. Any trainer above the threshold but not included within the published data (owing to having fewer than 100 declarations during the previous 12 months) would have their situation reviewed. Any such trainer may be suspended from using self-certificates if it is considered appropriate by the BHA.
4. Any horse who has been declared as a non-runner with a vet’s certificate would not be able to race on the two days following the race.
5. Stewards to hold an enquiry where a horse is scheduled to run on identical going as that on which it had been withdrawn during the previous month because of the ground. Where a pattern arises, or where it is considered circumstances warrant it, action may be taken such as preventing the horse from running.
6. The number of going-related non-runners will remain under close scrutiny, particularly when there has been only a marginal change in the going description. Should there be insufficient decline in the number of going-related non-runners, consideration will be given to the possibility of introducing a scale of going changes within the rules of racing and requiring a more significant change of going for a horse to be withdrawn, albeit with a greater degree of tolerance at the extremes of going.
7. All cases of a late change to going descriptions (i.e. once racing has started), to be recorded and reviewed by the BHA, alongside situations in which a high percentage of horses are withdrawn having already arrived on the course. Where records indicate cause for concern, the BHA Racecourse Inspectorate Team will increasingly visit the relevant racecourse prior to race meetings to assess ground conditions and compare with the Clerk’s going description.
8. BHA to encourage the ROA and PJA to agree that an owner will pay the full riding fee to the jockey of a non-runner declared after 9:00 on the day of the race. It is also proposed that this would take the place of any increase to the riding fee in 2018.
9. In cases where non-runners incur a fine, the fixed £140 fine is to be substantially increased for any such non-runners declared after 9:00 on the day of the race.
10. When considering whether to extend the 10:00 deadline for declarations under Rule F(90), any trainer who has declared more than one horse will be treated as if a maximum of one declaration has been made.

So there you have it. On the face of it, all perfectly reasonable. You’ll have to wait for the next blog to see why it has caused so much vituperation. Stretcher parties to the ready!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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“Five Steps to Saving the Endangered Racehorse Owner” – with acknowledgements to the Racing Post

On Sunday, 21st May, the Racing Post published an excellent article written by Tom Kerr, with what looked like significant input from the Racehorse Owners Association. It really is an excellent read and I wouldn’t disagree with a single point. Since we started Owners for Owners five years ago, we have been arguing strongly for significant improvement in prize-money and the total owner experience. We’re delighted, therefore, that the Racing Post has finally acknowledged the need for radical improvement, particularly at the grass-roots level. If you haven’t already read it, here is the article in its entirety, with full acknowledgement of copyright to the Racing Post and Tom Kerr.

***** 

ON A sunny January day at Lingfield this year, Bill Davis achieved the dream of every owner: he stood beaming in the winner’s enclosure alongside his pride and joy, a mare named Ayr Of Elegance, and celebrated coming first past the post.

What made this story notable enough to generate headlines across the mainstream media, was that Davis had been a racehorse owner for more than a quarter of a century without once previously gracing the winner’s podium. Davis was dubbed ‘Britain’s unluckiest racehorse owner’ by the press and his long, patient wait for success made for a delightful story. He was toasted as an exemplar of endurance, a man who tried and tried again and did not allow defeat to wear down his spirit. Yet no-one could have blamed him if he had quit the sport years ago, weighed down by heartache and expenditure.

“It was just madness that kept me searching for that first win,” he said.

While Davis’s long wait for success marks him out as an outlier cursed by poor fortune, the madness that kept him searching is evident in many long-term owners. They pour vast sums into racing for paltry returns, with around 30 per cent receiving no prize-money in any given year and owners of low-class horses unlikely to see ten pence back for every pound invested.

Those, like Davis, who remain through thick and thin, haemorrhaging money through the years, typically do it for the love of the game and for the sheer joy of being involved with racehorses. Some might enter the sport dreaming of glamour, victory and riches but if so those notions are soon disabused – more expect nothing other than to lose large sums of money. As the old wisecrack goes, the only way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a large one.

The financial contribution to racing of all these owners is vast. If sales are factored in, the figure runs into billions of pounds per year, but just keeping horses in training costs British owners around £290 million in 2015, a sum more than five times as large as that realised by the bookmaker levy scheme of the same year. According to the most recent numbers provided by the Racehorse Owners Association (ROA), the average cost of keeping a horse in training is £22,595 per year on the Flat and £16,325 over jumps. For many, that is an unsustainable or unappetising burden when the return on investment is so low and success frequently elusive.

Relying on the benevolent madness shown by owners like Davis has served the sport well in the past but it is no sort of business model for the future. Already the strains are clearly showing. In the past decade thousands of owners have left the sport, particularly at the grassroots end, and many of their places in the sport have not been filled. Racing’s ability to halt and reverse this trend – to save racehorse ownership – is the single greatest challenge facing the sport today.

Where have all the owners gone?

Since 2008, when the number of owners with horses in training peaked at 9,551, the ranks have thinned by 17 per cent in just eight years, hitting 7,947 last year. The decline has been been particularly pronounced in certain areas: the number of sole owners (those who own without partners) has declined from 2,632 in 2005 to just 1,852 in 2015, a fall of 30 per cent, while the number of owners with a single horse in training has fallen by almost 25 per cent since 2008. In Ireland the decline is even more alarming. Since the number of owners hit a high of 5,588 in 2007, just before the financial crisis struck, it has fallen precipitously, slumping to 4,195 in 2012 and 3,663 in 2016.

There is the odd ray of light for racing. Partnerships have performed well relative to other models of ownership and now account for almost three-quarters of all active owners. Also, the number of owners with more than 21 horses in training has soared from 40 in 2002 to 79 in 2015, indicative of how the sport has become increasingly reliant on a small but growing group of mega-investors such as Godolphin, Qatar Racing and Al Shaqab. But as these behemoths grow they threaten to further squeeze out the small owner.

“IT’S a massive issue for the sport that we have lost that level of ownership,” says BHA chief operating officer Richard Wayman, who is leading several initiatives to halt the decline. “We don’t operate in a bubble, there’s been a double recession through that period which clearly will have had an impact on this. “But that to one side, this has to be one of the key priorities for the sport in the coming years, to reverse that decline and begin to grow ownership again at all levels. This is a cross-industry challenge and the sport’s future depends on us being able to reverse the decline of recent years.”

A sport that in the course of a single decade loses almost one in five of anything – fans, players, punters – is in trouble. When those lost participants are as economically vital as owners are to racing, it is clear there is a crisis brewing, one that if not checked will cripple the sport.

The Racing Post, with the help of more than a dozen interviews conducted with owners, syndicate managers and others from across the racing industry, has sought to understand why the decline has occurred and how it might be reversed. To that end, this newspaper has identified five areas where action should be, and sometimes is being, taken to make the ownership experience more appealing.

1. Prize-money
   
   It is impossible to address the question of ownership without first confronting the impoverished elephant in the room: the sport, always expensive to get into, is in Britain uniquely unaffordable. In 2016, the ROA found that more than 80 per cent of lapsed owners cited the expense of owning as a reason for quitting, while over 60 per cent mentioned poor prize-money, making them the two most commonly cited reasons for leaving the sport.
   
   Famously, British owners receive less than a 25p in the pound return on their investments in racing, around half what their counterparts in France can expect, but recent research carried out by the BHA shows that, as prize-money is not equally distributed among owners, an owner of a modestly talented Flat horse can actually expect to lose an average of 92p in every pound invested.
   
   “The economics of it are so unattractive that it is very hard to retain people,” says Wayman. “The sport works very hard to recruit new people, but as they come in you’re losing people out the other end and working very hard just to stand still.”
   
   While prize-money has reached record levels in Britain, hitting £137.6m in 2016 (up from £93.9m at its nadir in 2011), it has largely been spent at the top end of the sport, lavished on festivals and feature races at the expense of grassroots racing. Little of that spending has found its way into the pockets of ordinary owners. With the advent of the reformed levy and the transfer of funding control to British racing, exercised through the new Racing Authority, an opportunity to address this problem has emerged and a two-stage plan set to be rolled out next year has been proposed.
   
   First, money will be ploughed into low-level racing, where many races have not risen in value for a decade or more (Wayman suggests a £3,000 race could become a £6,000 race). Second, the sport plans to begin paying prize-money down to eighth place, a scheme designed to return more to owners and encourage competitive field sizes.
   
   “Eight runners is important to us in terms of creating a product people want to bet on,” says Wayman. “If we can reward horsemen for creating eight-runner fields, then potentially everyone is benefiting from that.”
   
   Although much can be done to improve the prize-money situation for those at the bottom of the sport, the reality of Britain’s levy-based funding model means the return-on-investment figure is only ever likely to shift from appalling to unappetising. That does not preclude ownership from being successful, but it does mean the sport must seriously consider the value for money its product offers prospective owners.


2. Racecourse experience
   
   According to the ROA, the average cost per run for owners is over £3,000, making each trip to the racecourse equivalent in cost to a luxury holiday. Yet for many the racecourse experience is more Butlins than Bahamas. Owners’ complaints indicate something bordering on indifference from some of the tracks visited, while tired and overcrowded owners’ areas are a common complaint.
   
   “One thing our members want is a warm welcome by someone who is expecting them to arrive rather than a rather bleak entrance,” says Charlie Liverton, chief executive of the ROA. “It’s not all about champagne and caviar. The average age of an owner is 59 – a cup of tea and a sit down actually would make the world of difference.”
   
   A lack of something as basic as comfortable seating indicates a sport that is far off its aspiration to offer owners a luxury experience. The owner experience is now at the centre of farsighted track administrators’ vision for the future, especially as media rights payments – a lucrative source of income for racecourses – are increasingly linked to field sizes.
   
   “All our thinking about the future is what we can do for the owners to improve their experience,” says Bill Farnsworth, general manager at Musselburgh, which holds an ROA gold standard award for its owner experience and is one of several courses planning new facilities. “The cost of owning a racehorse and frustration of owning a racehorse is huge, so it’s a major achievement just getting to the racecourse and the least we can do is treat them like it’s a special day out.”


3. Catering for syndicates
   
   Racehorse ownership’s most promising area of growth, at least outside of the ultra-wealthy, is syndicates and partnerships, a model that has been successful in other parts of the world, notably Australia, which in 2015-16 had almost 80,000 people involved in ownership (up from 68,000 a decade earlier). Yet while syndicates grow, drawing owners to racecourses in larger numbers than ever before, many tracks are unable or unwilling to adjust to the new reality. Speaking to those who run and join syndicates, the most common complaint relates to securing access to the paddock before racing.
   
   One syndicate manager recounted taking 25 members – each of whom had paid £3,000 to be part of the venture – to Kempton for a recent Wednesday evening meeting. The track was typically underpopulated, but nonetheless only 14 owners’ tickets were forthcoming from the racecourse. The result? “I had to piss off almost half the owners,” the syndicate manager says.
   
   “It’s easy to forget how much people spend in syndicates,” says Adrian King, who runs Henacre Racing Club, a new low-cost syndicate designed to get new owners into the sport. “We’ve got one guy who works in Tesco for a couple of days a week to support his pension and allow him to be involved in racing. “Some of the racecourses are brilliant. But some of them, to put it quite bluntly, need to pull their finger out.”
   
   The ROA recently piloted a scheme at Lingfield and Windsor where syndicates could apply for up to 50 extra paddock passes (health and safety restrictions allowing) and are in talks with racecourses about rolling it out across Britain. Although some racecourses are limited by their facilities, ensuring syndicate members have access to the paddock is so vital to the experience tracks must do everything in their power, including redevelopment work, to allow access. To do otherwise is to deprive owners of the most precious part of racehorse ownership: being part of the action.


4. Administration and signing up
   
   A really slick registration process for racehorse owners might not be the sexiest advert for the sport, but it shouldn’t be underestimated just how burdensome, unappealing and antiquated the byzantine setup in use right now is.
   
   “The current system is very much paper-based, so it’s pretty much been in place all along,” says Wayman. “Right now if you want to become an owner we would ask you to complete a significant number of registration forms. That’s very time-consuming, and there’s an element of duplication where you are asked the same questions twice or more.”
   
   After signing up, owners don’t get a glossy welcome pack congratulating them on joining the exciting world of racehorse ownership, as might be expected. Instead they get “a little bit of administrative stuff”, says Wayman, and then bills, bills and more bills. As a reward for signing up to spend tens of thousands a year, it is more than a little underwhelming.
   
   This is an area the BHA and Weatherbys, which provides the sport’s administrative systems, are hard at work on. Originally slated for a spring launch but now pushed back to July, a new digital system is being designed to allow prospective owners to sign up in just 20 minutes and the applications to be processed within a working day. Owners will also have access to the racing calendar, whereas at the moment they would need to subscribe to the programme book (another bill to pay) if they wish to review race options for their horse. The many fees levied on owners are also being reviewed, with £150,000-worth abolished and others condensed into a single annual bill.
   
   All this is vital, particularly in terms of making ownership attractive to those generations used to seamlessly managing their life from the comfort of a phone or laptop. “It’s about providing a customer friendly service, in the same way as the banks have moved almost everything online,” says Wayman.


5. Communication and the off-course experience
   “The average owner goes racing five times a year with his horse,” says the ROA’s Liverton, “so effectively the industry has got to – got to, got to – give them action the other 360 days.”
   
   There is no area with greater potential to enhance ownership than communication, with the full range of digital platforms offering racehorse trainers and syndicate managers unprecedented ability to share information, pictures and videos with owners. At the moment, in this respect trainers and syndicate managers unsurprisingly run the gamut from garrulous to JD Salinger.
   
   When trainers are good, the approval from owners is table-rattling. Matt Pryce, who began as a syndicate member at Jeremy Gask’s before going on to create his own partnership, explains what made his experience so positive: “I always felt you got treated the same if you owned the ear of a 50-rated horse or you had Medicean Man. They provided weekly audio updates, videos and a feeling you were involved in decisions. The yard also do a weekly newsletter so you can support their other runners too.”
   
   Communication like this makes an enormous impact and the sport as a whole can do much to help trainers. Many don’t have the technical know-how to take advantage of the digital tools at their disposal, something which the ROA’s Liverton suggests should become part of their training modules and revisited frequently to ensure the latest technology is understood and being utilised. These days it is the work of a moment for videos and audio updates to be pinged off to owners and the sport should be looking at working with technology companies to develop custom software and apps to make the process as simple and rewarding as possible.
   
   Racing should also be thinking about where it wants to be in ten, 20 or 30 years’ time. One day, owners should be able to tap a button on their smart device and pull up a live stream of their racehorse, with details of workouts, schedule and upcoming targets all at their fingertips.
   
   Working hard to get ahead
   
   Owning racehorses is a rewarding experience that can provide enormous pleasure. Its success over the decades, despite all the frustrations and expenses, is testament to a product with genuine staying power. Yet racing can’t take owners for granted, nor assume the model that once worked will do so into the future.
   
   Racing needs to do more than just address the concerns of current and former owners. It must also make the product appealing to a younger generation of prospective owners that has higher expectations and more choice on where to spend their leisure pound than ever before.
   
   Racing is working hard to stand still right now. It must work even harder to get ahead.
   
   

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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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Do Wind Operations “Work”, and Should They be Declared to Punters?

Last month Bruce Millington, in the Racing Post, argued strongly that because of the dramatic effect that wind operations can sometimes have on horses, the fact of having one should be declared to the betting public ahead of the horse racing. It was a forceful article and it even had an implication that in some way the public was potentially being deceived by a conspiracy of owners and trainers. This prompted a lot of discussion, correspondence and social media traffic, the vast majority of which equally strongly appeared to agree with Mr. Millington. From the owner / trainer perspective, there was more caution and this, in turn, prompted another debate about how many aspects of training and veterinary treatment of the racehorse should be declared, and what, if any, limits there should be on such disclosure.

The Owners for Owners default position in racing is always to advocate transparency. We believe that owners, racegoers, punters and all stakeholders involved in the sport should have full access to information where it is demonstrably relevant. The counter-argument is that it can sometimes be difficult to interpret information, but this argues for releasing not just the facts but also information and education to raise the overall knowledge and awareness of the challenges of training racehorses and keeping them fit, both physically and mentally. So why not apply this principle and disclose the fact that a horse has had a wind operation?

However there are clearly some practical difficulties in this, not least that there is no such thing as just a singular “wind operation”. Horses’ wind has been a subject of concern and conjecture for centuries. Some make no noise but the wind is poor, while others can be roaring like a steam-train but the wind is fine. There are over 20 veterinary procedures that can be used to improve or optimise a horse’s airways, palate and larynx, with the common ones being a hobday, palate cauterisation, tie-back, tie-forward and release of epiglottic entrapment (which is what happened to Cue Card, allowing him to win the King George). Some trainers give wind operations to horses almost as a matter of course from an early age, while others believe that as horses strengthen and mature the wind can naturally improve. And of course there are just as many different options available for bridles, tongue-ties and bits to facilitate breathing, and there are constant innovations with these; as an example, some trainers have recently started importing spoon bits from Australia which seem to have a positive effect in keeping the horse’s tongue and soft palate down. So which, if not all, of these procedures and trainer practices should be declared, when, how and how often?

Not surprisingly, the debate then spilled over into all aspects of training. In some countries it is mandatory to weigh the racehorse and declare that weight to the betting public ahead of racing. As an indication of fitness that sounds very sensible – assuming of course that you can track and relate that weight to what is deemed to be the optimum for that horse. Should ulcer treatment be declared? Or the horse’s blood profile? How about recent gallops? And for that matter the gallops surface that the horse has been on, and whether it has been in a water treadmill, etc., etc. Eventually information disclosure would push the boundaries and become ridiculous. Apparently there is a BHA study under way at the moment looking to provide guidelines, and while there will probably be more disclosure it is equally important to define the limits on it.

While the debate was going on, one of our horses, Thady Quil, who had previously had a cauterisation of the palate, had a tie-forward. Unfortunately the cauterisation hadn’t “worked”, and he was pulled up in his last run. What effect would declaration of that cauterisation have had on the betting public? At the moment there is no requirement to declare the tie-forward. Throughout the treatment we have had very interesting discussions with the veterinary surgeon looking after our horse, who is adamant that surgery as such is rarely a “miracle cure”, and that what he is doing is applying procedures that will hopefully help the horse to control his wind – but most importantly it is a voluntary rather than involuntary action on the part of the horse. There is a strong interplay between the physical modifications brought about by the operation and the confidence and ability of the horse to trust and control his breathing …. and how on earth could you declare how well that has been achieved?

Clearly you couldn’t, but it shows that there are absolutely no certainties whatsoever in this area. Information release to the public therefore needs to come with a health warning – wind operations don’t always “work”. Indeed when I asked the vet for his views on releasing the details he joked that it would put him out of business if everyone knew how difficult it is to predict the outcome. Don’t bet blind on wind ops!!

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Have the Racecourses Hijacked Our Sport …. and If So, What Should Be Done About It?

This blog has been triggered by an article in the Racing Post by Colin Russell, and subsequent discussion with a number of our owners who definitely agree with it. Basically, Colin argued that the power in racing doesn’t sit with the BHA, the bookmakers or Horsemen’s Group, but with racecourses, which “act like spoilt kids and don’t worry about how it affects anyone else”. He argues that they control the purse strings, as they sit astride most of the big flows of cash through Levy Board grants, media rights, gate money, sponsorship, owner entry charges, the Tote, bookmakers’ payments – and that’s before you even get to the additional contribution from the racegoers themselves, consuming expensive food and drink. Key decisions are being taken by the racecourses in their own best commercial interests rather than for racing as a whole, as illustrated by silly same-day race meeting clashes between local tracks such as Kempton and Lingfield, Southwell and Nottingham, Haydock and Chester. He believes that the Racecourse Association doesn’t care about this, and moreover the tracks pay as little in prize-money as they can get away with.

At times the article was clearly a bit of a rant, but the argument struck a chord and most people I’ve spoken to believe that the racecourses are definitely calling the shots. It seems that legally they own 1,200 of the 1,400+ race fixtures and therefore hold both the purse-strings and the power in the British racing landscape. Without any doubt this will be tested over the next few months as the BHA tries to implement the proposed tripartite agreement and more importantly the operating principles behind it. At the moment the RCA hasn’t signed up to this agreement alongside the BHA and the Horsemen’s Group. Several of the key issues that need to be resolved at a tripartite board revolve around racecourses and the way the fixture list operates. In essence the BHA has relatively low authority to influence this, so if you take as jaundiced a view as Colin Russell then, yes, there is a risk that the racecourses have hijacked our sport.

Earlier in the week, though, I was encouraged to see that Richard Wayman, Chief Executive of the Racehorse Owners’ Association, is moving across to become the new Chief Operating Officer of the BHA. I’ve worked with Richard on a number of projects and he is an extremely able individual whose natural style is highly collaborative. As he has been given the job of sorting out the fixture list, he is clearly going to be a very important power broker with the racecourses. Indeed I joked with him that he was offered three jobs – by the IMF to sort out the Greek debt crisis; by the UN to address the threats posed by ISIS; and by the BHA to create a more rational race programme. Full marks that he has gone for the most difficult one!?!

However I do think it is wrong to lump all the racecourses together and be critical of the lot. So I sat down to do my own classification and started slotting them into one of four groups: stars (the tracks you really like going to, and which offer a top-quality raceday experience), improvers (where substantial investment is being made), dullards (which are just coasting along) and exploiters (which are ripping off everyone). At the positive end of this scale, my top ten tracks would be Aintree, Ascot, Ayr, Chester, Goodwood, Haydock, Market Rasen, Newmarket, Sandown, York. Six of these are independently managed and four are controlled by Jockey Club Racecourses. My bottom ten are Bath, Brighton, Lingfield, Newcastle, Plumpton, Redcar, Southwell, Towcester, Wolverhampton and Worcester. This time none are JCR; three are independent and seven are under the dubious management of Arena Racing Company. And of course I haven’t flagged up some of the strong improvers such as Cheltenham and Newbury where millions are being invested at the moment.

As the Americans say about strategy, “it ain’t vanilla”. Different racecourses and different operators need different strategies and different levers of power to influence future direction. Every course is a business in its own right, while JCR and ARC are substantial players in the leisure market with hundreds of staff and multi-million pound budgets. As such they are open to a range of negotiating tactics, just like any other commercial organisation. The challenge for the BHA is to create a clear vision for the future shape of British racing, particularly in terms of the fixture list and race programme. Once the gap between the current position and the future requirement is clear, then the levers need to be applied to secure it. One end of the negotiating scale is collaborative but that shouldn’t preclude the other end, which is more aggressive. There are bound to be ways in which racecourses can be persuaded and / or forced to behave in the right way, for the greater good of the sport. After all, the BHA licences all racing establishments including racecourses, so why not introduce a range of criteria that need to be pursued and without which licences can be withheld.

This subject is definitely one of the top three issues facing the sport and its future success. We wish Richard Wayman all possible success in the new role that he will be playing to bring about some of the necessary changes.

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Complete Agreement with the Mighty Mullins on the Goal of Doubling Prize-Money …. But definitely not just for Grade 1 races at the Festival

Only nine more days of waiting for the commentator to declare: “And they’re under orders now for the 2015 running of the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle” ….. and the hair-tingling roar of the crowd. The mere thought of it is having me box-walking far more than even our super Flat three-year-old, Jolievitesse.

Last year I was foolish enough to make some predictions of winners and have no intention of repeating that catastrophe, so I was more than grateful to see a very interesting piece in the Racing Post with Willie Mullins demanding that more is done to reward jumps owners at the Cheltenham Festival. The most interesting comments were: “The prize-money in jumps racing, given the costs, does not make sense and it cannot last. That, to me, is not fair and it’s not on for what owners do for the sport of racing. The meetings are there, but the prize-money should rise. All we see is the prize-money edging up a bit every year …. Prize-money for the graded races at Cheltenham could be at least doubled, if not more. It would give meaningful prizes for racing horses. Someone should really break out and say, ‘We need to reinvigorate the sport’, before it goes down. The bottom end of racing is disappearing.”

A lot of our friends and owners would do anything rather than follow blogs and Twitter. Those who do will have seen that Willie Mullins’ comments triggered an avalanche of views, both positive and negative. These are some typical examples from the ether:

“So often prize-money barely covers the van costs and entry fees. Mr. Mullins is dead right.”

“The bottom of the market needs the extra prize-money, not the top end.”

“Owning a horse is a choice. How far do you push the financial remuneration for indulging in a hobby?”

“If there are no owners then the people who work in racing lose their jobs. The sport needs to be sustainable.”

“Before we start stuffing more money in Willie Mullins’s and Rich Ricci’s pockets, let’s have more money for the little guy who runs his horses at Fontwell, Ffos Las, Towcester, Carlisle and Catterick.”

“Willie Mullins is absolutely right, the prize-money needs to be increased even just for running and finishing in a race at the Festival, as it is the owners who pay for and keep the show on the road.”

There were certainly three clusters of comments: the whole of the sport needs more money, and prize-money should definitely be increased at the lower end; racecourses and bookmakers make a huge amount of money out of the Festival, and more money should flow back; and a concern that trainers of the stature of Mr. Mullins and his rich owners are more than prepared to invest huge amounts of money, so much so that it is disincentivising the average owner. On balance I agree with all these views, to the extent that I fired out ten Owners for Owners views on prize-money into the Twitter space. (I can hear the comments of “Get a life!”)

1. Willie “Double the Prize-Money at Cheltenham” Mullins’ view is one we definitely support, but on a far broader basis …. it needs to happen everywhere.
2. Prize-money should be a top three priority of the BHA, to double prize-money by 2020 # racing needs a more strategic approach.
3. Owners invest £0.5bn a year in British racing. Return on ownership is 25p in the £. # make ROO a strategy of the BHA.
4. Boost it from the bottom up. The ordinary owner is giving racing up, not the Rich Riccis. # time for step change in strategy.
5. Get real on costs vs. rewards. One of our horses wins £250 for coming 4th in 16-runner race. Cost £600 to race him.
6. Does racing want more or fewer horses in training? If more, you need more owners. # boost the cash: boost the owners.
7. What is the optimal number of horses in training? Does anyone know? What is the BHA view? More: the same: or fewer?
8. Once there is a BHA view on optimal horse / owner numbers you can align prize-money to that goal.
9. Without the owners there is no racing. They are the #1 stakeholders in the sport. # treat them better and the sport is strong.
10. Make the lowest place-money at least cover the owner’s costs. Start from that position and work back to win-money.

As you can see, quite a blast of views. Doubtless we’ll be covering them in far more detail through the blog.

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.

Reflections on Royal Ascot 2014 – Fabulous Showcase for British Racing …. and a Few Issues

I don’t know if you saw the typically eloquent comment from Alastair Down in the Racing Post during Royal Ascot: “Because it is easier to pander to prejudice and caricature than it is to explain the many-layered complexities of Ascot, the broad brush stroke of the media settles for the simple portrayal of the meeting as some anachronistic toff-fest by Class Distinction out of Behind The Times.” He, like me, disagrees with that, although I often have trouble with some of the “pomp and circumstance” that is always associated with the Royal meeting. But before flagging up a number of issues that came to the surface, here is a personal view of the racing:

• What a start to the meeting for Sheikh Joaan Al Thani’s Al Shakkab Racing (by the way, named after a massive battle in the 19th Century in the Ottoman Empire) with Toronado winning the Queen Anne and then The Wow Signal prevailing for John Quinn. Must have been a huge sigh of relief from Harry Herbert.
• Fabulous results for Eddie Lynam with Sole Power in the King’s Stand, Anthem Alexander in the Queen Mary and Slade Power in the Diamond Jubilee. How can such a relatively small yard do so well with sprinters?
• I’ve said to all our NH trainers how much I’d love to see our horses go to one of the staying races at Royal Ascot. Wouldn’t you love to have owned Domination in the Ascot Stakes, Hartnell in the Queen’s Vase or Pique Sous in the Queen Alexandra? You could have bought all three for under €100,000! And of course, what about Landing Light, under a superbly mature ride from Joseph O’Brien in the Gold Cup where, for my money, he out-rode Ryan Moore despite hitting the horse 11 times and being banned and fined.
• I’m glad I wasn’t the punter who had £100,000 on Kingman as they swung into the straight in the St. James Palace. But I would have been, after I saw the magnificent acceleration. Hasn’t 2000 Guineas form worked out well, with winners of the Irish Guineas, English and French Derbies and now this race.
• Everyone expected Treve to show why she is Timeform’s highest rated horse in the Prince of Wales. Amazingly she is the first Arc winner to race in Britain since 1990. Obviously not right in her action, she was thrashed by The Fugue who is top class when conditions are in her favour.
• I liked the comment from Jamie Osborne after Field Of Dream won the Royal Hunt Cup, when asked: “How will you celebrate?” …. “Well!”
• Eagle Top looked a top-quality horse in the King Edward VII. Would you keep him to 1m 4f or go for the Leger?
• Great to see Telescope bounce back in the Hardwick. Although I’m not a huge Highclere fan, it’s always good to see a syndicate grab a big one at Royal Ascot. Another sigh of relief for HH. There is quite a bit of rumbling amongst owners that maybe Highclere is no longer the main focus of Messrs. Herbert and Warren.
• In the Wokingham, Karl Burke’s horse Rivellino ran a blinder from a poor draw to finish 3rd, to land a number of good each-way bets for OfO owners. Thank you, Karl!

Phew! Sorry if I left off some of your favourite horses. But what about some of the issues that inevitably surround the world’s best Flat fixture? Quite a bit of murmuring that racing / bloodstock is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of a small number of very high net worth individuals. That was reinforced by the ultra-premium Goffs London Sale, in association with Qipco, at the Orangery in Kensington Palace on the Monday evening. That notably saw mare, Crystal Gaze, with Frankel foal, selling for £1.15m to the Magnier clan. Café Society was snapped up to go to Australia, and will go to the Melbourne Cup. It now seems that all you need to do to trouser £300k+ is to have a top-notch, 95+ 1m 2f to 1m 4f Flat horse and flog it out East. There was also the appearance of a new Russian buyer, Volga Star Racing, who spent £400k on a son of Giant’s Causeway. A fabulous sale, lots of spiffing champagne for the invited audience ….. but out of the price-range of most.

On the track itself we saw Stoute’s yard bounce back, and with John Gosden, dominate the meeting; so, again, a concentration of trainer power as well as buyers. The interference rule now appears to be too lenient and needs to be tightened up again, judging by the ease with which Hartnell gained the race having almost knocked Century over in the Queen’s Vase. Jockeys, equally, are ignoring the whip rule with over 46 days in bans being doled out. There is increasing controversy about the bias on firm ground on the straight course between those drawn high vs. low. Worryingly, not a single horse came to Ascot from the Southern Hemisphere.

Finally, there was a lot of debate about BBC vs. RUK vs. Channel 4. Depending on how you interpret the figures, it looks as though viewing has dropped over 50% under the C4 stewardship. Bearing in mind that only a few years ago, Ascot used to have an excess of 1.25m viewers, while simultaneously C4 was broadcasting from other venues with ½m viewers. A lot of viewers appear to have disappeared, and if that is maintained, it has considerable funding and media rights implications. Personally I’d sack a number of the presenters and bring back more individuals who can share the passion and excitement of racing. You don’t necessarily need lots of high tech for that, but you do need to be able to communicate the essence of what makes Royal Ascot such a stand-out meeting. And, very rarely for me at Ascot, I finished in profit on the betting front! But then, so did almost everyone else.

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.