Have You Heard About the New Ownership Strategy for British Racing? I Bet You Haven’t

Towards the end of July full details of the 2019 Fixture List were published with all the powers that be in British Racing claiming it as a great example of the tripartite structure working together well to balance the different requirements of the sport and the betting industry. A quick summary is that there will be a record 1,511 meetings next year, three more than in 2018: 951 Flat fixtures, 596 Jumps; 23% of the total will be all-weather meetings with floodlit fixtures January to April starting at 4pm (including 20 at Southwell); there will be a three-week gap between the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals. It was very easy to access and while not everyone agrees with the precedence of quantity over quality, at least it was an announcement with transparency and lots of detail. Well done to all concerned.

Unfortunately the so-called Ownership Strategy for British Racing appears to be at the other end of the scale for transparency, detail and ease of access. Indeed, has anyone actually heard of it? If you are an assiduous reader of the Racehorse Owners’ Association Annual Report 2017/18 you will have found a couple of pages on it, but it is devilish tricky to find out any more. Your diligent Owners for Owners blog writer has been sleuthing the case for almost a year now, with repeated email requests to the chief executive of the ROA, Charlie Liverton, but alas, to no avail. There is a total refusal to provide any meaningful insights or detail about the strategy, which is pretty scandalous because significant industry funds (almost £1m) have been committed to the strategy, its promotion and marketing, with the ROA as the lead body on behalf of the whole industry.

Owners for Owners has a particular interest in ownership strategy, not least because I was one of the unpaid volunteers who sat on the original strategy pillar team launched by the BHA, and spent a considerable amount of time examining ownership issues and requirements with substantial input going into the business case that proposed 1,000 extra horses in British Racing by 2020. That clearly counts for nothing with the ROA. You would have thought that my involvement in the pillar team would have guaranteed access to the latest strategy, and that is before you consider the large investment that OfO has made in bloodstock in recent years – indeed under various banners we are managing almost 30 horses in training and a substantial network of owners. Ironic that this doesn’t seem to count for anything with the ROA either. And then finally I’m on the committee of the Racehorse Syndicates Association which wants to work on an “inclusive” and “collaborative” basis with other stakeholders in British Racing to ensure that ownership strategies properly reflect the needs and demands of the ever-increasing numbers involved in syndicates. I put “inclusive” and “collaborative” in inverted commas because these are words much used across the tripartite structure of the BHA, Horsemen’s Group and Racecourse Association. With the ROA being central to the Horsemen’s Group, it is again somewhat surprising that they are not prepared to apply the same principles and values in their everyday dealings with owners whom they purport to represent.

Here is a summary of what the ROA terms their “development of a collaborative and inclusive ownership strategy for British Racing”. The ROA project highlights “the continued importance of the role of owners within racing. The strategy will give owners an enhanced brand and identity, emphasising their role as supporters of the sport in so many different ways.”

Apparently four work streams have been developed within the framework of the Ownership Strategy for British Racing:

• Retention: “the project focuses on the key elements of retention of existing owners.”
• Ownership Promotion: “investment in the development of a united identity for ownership will open the door to further simplification and streamlining of the ownership journey.”
• Trainers: “a key element of the project relating to trainers is about enhancement of the service and the improvement of information provided by trainers for owners.”
• Racecourses: “this work stream addresses owners’ racecourse experience on a number of levels. There will be a focus on creating minimum racecourse standards and assisting courses to deliver these”.

Nothing at all wrong with those four work streams. Bearing in mind that they have been described in a report dated 2017/18, then presumably all the different facets of the strategy have now been developed. What I am trying to find out are the specifics, i.e. exactly what initiatives are going to be launched, by whom, at what cost and by when, to achieve what specific goals? It is true that the ROA does flag up a number of goals, but they are far too woolly.

When I was a management consultant I was working with major companies where the problem wasn’t a lack of strategies, but too many. You would often find hundreds of strategies but scant evidence of their successful implementation. Indeed while I was working with one international bank they even had a strategy to reduce the number of strategies!! Seeing the rather comic side of this, I used to refer to “Yeti strategies” – much talked about, never seen. I do hope that isn’t the case with the one that Charlie Liverton is leading.

The intention after this blog is to approach all the leading executives across the tripartite structure, namely Steve Harman, Nick Rust, Richard Wayman, Charlie Liverton, Philip Freedman, Stephen Atkin and Rupert Arnold and see if they can help me obtain more details of the practical implications of this strategy for owners.

I’ll keep you posted through this 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.

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!

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.

“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.
   
   

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 Bizarre World of Bloodstock Prices vs. Prize-Money for Grassroots Owners. Change is much needed.

Sometimes in British racing it can feel as though you are occupying a parallel universe. Whenever you go to the sales, you cannot help but be astounded by the enormous prices now being paid for bloodstock. So, for example, at the Tattersalls’ Cheltenham sale on 21st April, twelve lots sold for more than £100,000, five for £200,000 +, with an average price of £85,729 (up 89% on last year) and a median of £50,000 (up 25%). Last year, 34 lots sold for £1,546,000 while this year 35 went for £3,500,000. You can only agree with the auctioneers when they said it was “yet another remarkable sale”. But that was nothing compared with the Craven Breeze-Up sale which I also went to earlier that week at Newmarket. Records were smashed in every direction, with the average being 144,082 guineas and a median of 110,000. Global demand has never been higher, and there seems to be no shortage of ultra-high net worth individuals prepared to pay these sums.

So when you step out of this rarefied level into another universe, i.e. that occupied by the grassroots owner, you can’t help but be startled by the paucity of prize-money. Earlier in April, trainers Richard Hannon and William Haggas aired their criticism, drawing on the example of pitiful prize-money at Windsor and Southwell. Hannon Jnr. struck the right chord, stating that prize-money is now “bordering on the outright disrespectful to racing professionals”. They intend to reduce their runners and withdraw support for tracks such as this.

That’s not to say that there isn’t substantial prize-money available at some meetings, as was seen at the Cheltenham Festival, Aintree Grand National meeting and the All-Weather Championships at Lingfield on Good Friday. The key problem though is that the prize-money as you come down through the ranks, particularly to Classes 5 and 6, becomes derisory.

Encouragingly the racing industry is well aware of this problem. When I went to the British Industry Road Show held at Cheltenham in early March, there was a reaffirmation of the four prime targets: 1,000 additional horses in training by 2020 + betting participation levels up 5% by 2018 + racecourse attendances to reach 7 million by 2020 + £120m extra income for the sport per annum by 2018. Even more encouraging is the latest news that the European Commission has finally given state-aid approval to the Government’s plans for levy reform. Betting operators who had previously evaded levy because they were based offshore must now contribute to British racing’s funding, from betting on the sport. All operators will have to pay 10% of their gross profits on betting on British racing and it is estimated that this will bring in £30-40 million plus per year, which can be reinvested into the sport.

While there is bound to be a fairly lengthy queue to get their hands on that additional income, Richard Wayman, the Chief Operating Officer of the BHA, at the Road Show demonstrated that he is fully aware of the serious problem at grassroots level. A figure of 26p in the £ cost recovery has been used for some time (i.e. owners on average lose 74p in the £), but in fact when you look at the lower end of the sport it drops to an even more pathetic 8p. In a persuasive presentation, Richard stated that it is vital to get more money into the hands of ordinary owners while also improving the raceday experience and simplifying the needlessly complex racing administration.

I’m hoping that a number of initiatives are pursued with real conviction once the additional levy funds start to flow:

• Renegotiate the minimum values for low-end racing in Britain. £3,500 total prize-money for a race means that the winner of that race doesn’t even cover their costs for a month. That has to be increased, and will give more return to owners in Class 5 / Class 6 races.
• Redirect prize-money away from top Group / Graded races and improve the return at Class 3 and below.
• Do the same for races where there is a huge gap between win prize-money and 2nd and 3rd places. Raise the money considerably for those in the frame.
• Monitor what race tracks are actually doing, and penalise those that run a meeting with races only at the minimum values. Be similarly strict with tracks that have one valuable race, but at the expense of their lesser races.
• Set a clear goal for increasing cost recovery by the average grassroots owner by 2020. This should be a clear objective for both the BHA and the Racecourse Association.

Finally Philip Freedman, the much-admired Chair of the Horsemen’s Group, has emphasised that the decline in owners since 2007 has actually been greater than the decline in horses in training. The huge risk is that new owners don’t come into the sport in the numbers needed, and equally that existing owners exit or reduce their involvement. It is definitely time now for major change …. and hopefully levy reform will provide the funds. Grassroots prize-money should become the #1 focus of attention for the BHA and the other bodies in the Tripartite Agreement. Without that, the base of the pyramid will crumble, with very serious consequences.

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.

British Racing Industry Road Show: A Case of Onwards, Upwards and Occasionally Sideways.

My wife and I were invited to the road show at Cheltenham Racecourse at the beginning of March. It was exceptionally well organised and informative, and well hosted by Lydia Hislop. I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite so many of racing’s leaders at the same venue; I chatted to Steve Harman, Chairman of the BHA, and then listened to Nick Rust (CEO of the BHA), Richard Wayman (COO, BHA), Philip Freedman (Chairman, Horsemen’s Group), Stephen Atkin (CEO, Racecourse Association), Rod Street (CEO, Great British Racing) as well as the leaders of the Professional Jockeys Association and Arena Racing Company. There was also a presentation dedicated to staffing, training and welfare issues with a panel led by the Human Resources Director of the BHA and well supported by other specialists in this field. Those who know me well will know that I was not sufficiently intimidated to refrain from asking questions, which I addressed to Messrs. Rust and Atkin.
Just to summarise the key targets that the tripartite group of the BHA, Horsemen’s Group and Racecourse Association signed up to in 2015, and which still guide the industry:

• 1,000 additional horses in training by 2020;
• Betting participation levels up 5% by 2018;
• Racecourse attendances to reach 7 million by 2020;
• £120m of extra income for the sport per annum by 2018.

At the same time there was open acknowledgement of the challenges that face British Racing, particularly:

• Sole ownership in decline;
• Shortage of skilled stable staff;
• Statutory Levy forecast to drop under £50m in 2017;
• Need to develop a constructive partnership with the British betting sector;
• Low returns to horsemen at grassroots level.

Within the various presentations there was certainly plenty of encouraging news, with good progress including:

• £30-40m potential increase in revenue to be raised by the new Levy; ABP scheme expected to raise more than £10m in extra revenue in 2016/17; 2% growth in total betting activity since 2014; ITV channel.
• £8m prize-money paid to the industry via Plus 10 bonus scheme; ownership decline halted; 505 additional horses in training since 2014; 3% growth in number of syndicates and partnerships.
• In The Paddock web site launched to promote syndicates; 2.9% growth in racecourse attendance since 2014; 12% growth in prize-money to almost £138m since 2014; new approach to the Fixture List under way; 4.7% growth in races with 8+ runners since 2014; 5.4m social media followers.

Phew! Lots of statistics there. Lydia did a show of hands on “optimism” for the industry, and very encouragingly it was skewed positively. There are many initiatives under way or in the pipeline, and there was a definite feeling of momentum for the next couple of years – hence the “onwards and upwards”.

But that doesn’t mean that all will necessarily be plain sailing. The questions I raised were all to do with “Grassroots Racing”. Very encouragingly the leaders of our sport are planning to focus much more effort and money on to the base of the racing pyramid, as they need to, because the most startling figure I heard was that the average cost recovery for those at the bottom of the sport is now only 8p in the £. When you look closely at the various graphs, the horses in training figure over the last five years has barely increased (13,716 to 14,033 in five years) while ownership has actually declined, although apparently that trend has now been halted (8,215 to 7,946 registered owners in five years).

I genuinely believe that this grassroots racing focus is both long overdue and absolutely essential to the long-term sustainability of the sport. If the grassroots owner retires or leaves the sport, the economics and competitiveness crumble. When you look at a race meeting such as the Cheltenham Festival on this week, all looks exciting with prodigious prize-money everywhere, but that is most definitely not how it seems on “normal” racedays. In fact I prefaced my question to Messrs. Rust and Atkin with a statement: “With Owners for Owners involved in 23 horses, I am an archetypal grassroots owner, enjoying 8p in the £ cost recovery, the dubious pleasures of minimum value racing when the total prize-money is only £3,500, endless hassles on badges, over-crowded lounges and nowhere to sit …. and yet I still remain optimistic.” I am just hoping that we see significant improvement over the next few years to 2020 to justify that optimism.

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.

Announcements Made on the Simplification of Ownership Administration: Full Marks to BHA and ROA.

Ever since I’ve been involved in owning horses the duplication, complexity, expense and hassle of ownership administration has been a complete pain in the backside. I have often joked that it was probably easier back in the days of Queen Anne. Even the postman who comes to our house regularly takes the micky out of the huge postbag of Weatherbys-related correspondence. It has probably taken a decade to learn how to deal with it all, which shows how complicated it can be – particularly when you’re running partnerships with multiple owners.

On the serious side though, it is not just the needlessly complex admin. There is a strategic dimension to the whole subject. The BHA, in its strategy for growth, is determined to bring more owners into the sport and retain those they already have. Anything which is potentially a barrier to that has to be properly addressed and changed. As Charlie Liverton, CEO of the Racehorse Owners Association, said last week when a raft of ownership reforms was announced: “Owners have long complained that their first steps on the road to ownership were characterised by red tape and confusing ownership structures, followed by numerous fees.” Encouragingly, from next Spring this should change, with a far simpler and much more modern process being introduced. My wife and I are very pleased about this, not least because we’ve taken part in a number of working groups with both the BHA and the ROA, and have made numerous recommendations for changes together with testing some of the proposed changes that are now going to be made. There are three main elements to the new system.

1. Digitalising administration: a new racing administration web site for owners is being launched. Through an online hub, which will be supported by a telephone help desk, owners will be able to register, update and maintain ownerships digitally, removing the vast majority of paper-based forms. In addition owners will be able to set up sponsorships, register an authority to act and check and pay invoices, all online. These changes will make it much easier and quicker to complete any necessary administrative requirements associated with being an owner.


2. Simplifying ownership structures: in Owners for Owners we describe ourselves as forming joint ownerships, thereby encouraging co-owners to be genuine owners of horses. However it has never been easy simply to describe the differences between, say, co-owners, partnerships and syndicates. Having said that, many of our owners are with us because we are not a “syndicate”. There is certainly a lot of confusion around the different types of ownership, and the plan now is to streamline the eight types down to five: sole, partnership, syndicate, racing club and company. Sole and company ownerships will remain the same. Partnerships will be designed for small groups of registered owners who are looking to share the responsibility and liability for their horse(s) (the Owners for Owners offering). Syndicates will become the ownership vehicle for entities which have been formed through a public offering to consumers and / or one that has an individual managing it (e.g. a syndicator). In future the syndicator will become responsible for the syndicate, replacing the current requirement for two nominated partners from within the group. In a racing club, the horse(s) are owned by the club with members paying a subscription fee.


3. Consolidation of fees: along with simplifying the registration process, both new and existing owners alike will benefit from the alignment and bundling of ownership fees. Rather than charging a number of different fees at various stages through the year, fees for the registration and re-registration of colours, an authority to act and VAT will be aligned to one date in the year. New owners will be able to purchase “fee bundles” at the registration stage in order to minimise any additional admin.

All of this is to be welcomed. It will be very interesting to see exactly how the changes are introduced. Regular readers of the blog will know that I was highly critical of Weatherbys Bank when their online banking was updated, which was a change management disaster. Hopefully everyone has learnt from that.

So full marks to both the ROA and the BHA for their part in pushing for these changes to take place. I worked closely with Richard Wayman before he became the Chief Operating Officer of the BHA, and his support for the initiative is warmly welcomed. His views are clear: “At the heart of the sport’s growth strategy is making racehorse ownership more attractive and accessible to both new and existing owners. This will require significant progress in a number of areas, including ownership administration, where there needs to be much greater emphasis on the customer experience. The initiatives announced (on Tuesday 25th October) will address many of the administrative frustrations faced by owners for too long.” Hear, hear!

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.

Woeful Weatherbys Fall at the First Hurdle of Technology Change Management – The Frustrating Shambles of their Online Banking Upgrade and Worrying Concerns for 2017+

In the last blog I was very supportive of the statements that Richard Wayman made at a recent BHA strategy forum at Newbury on 1st March relating to a major innovation led by Weatherbys to streamline ownership administration from 2017. He assured the audience that the changes “will put the customer, the owner, at the centre” of the exercise. It would be easy to say, “about time too”, because racing administration is far too expensive, over-complicated and a real burden on those who have to deal with it. Indeed, needlessly costly and frustrating administration is a barrier to owning and one factor contributing to owners leaving the sport.

You may know that Weatherbys is a privately-owned company established in 1770. It has 16,000 customers (12,000 racing clients and 4,000 private) and its latest accounts show that it made profits of almost £6m on income of £18.5m. One element of its work is to provide British racing with its central administration under a sole source contract with the BHA. The fees that they charge are not only a source of profit to Weatherbys but also co-fund the BHA. This is hardly guaranteed to drive significant transactional and cost efficiencies. Furthermore, I doubt whether its actual competencies in modern integrated transactional processing have ever been market-tested. It may do a marvellous job with the Stud Book, but that doesn’t guarantee that it has the expertise to design, launch and deliver a modern, owner-friendly, online administrative system.

A project has been running in Weatherbys for over five years to simplify ownership structures, integrate all the administration and transfer it on to this online system so that racing finally moves into the modern era with a highly user-friendly process involving minimal paperwork and easy-to-operate technology. In Owners for Owners we are really looking forward to the system being launched in 2017 – not least my wife who has the unenviable task of doing all our OfO racing administration and VAT reclaims. It is obviously essential that this project is a real success, otherwise it will generate considerable owner negativity, which is what Weatherbys’ latest online banking upgrade has done. At least four success criteria need to be met from a change management perspective and, alas, I’d have major reservations at the moment that Weatherbys can meet them.

1. Owner pull, not Weatherbys push. Whatever system is designed must meet the explicit needs for simplicity and cost-effectiveness of different types of owner. They are the primary stakeholders. Administrators and technologists at Weatherbys’ HQ need to view all changes through their eyes, and not just push out a system that may or may not be fit for purpose.
2. Intuitive, simple and workable. The average age of owners is 57+. Many are not particularly technology-literate and are doing administration from home, where broadband may not be super-fast, and computers and software may not be the latest versions. The new system must be easy to use, operable from home and with a “look, touch and feel” that is owner-friendly and intuitive. 
3. Properly tested. It is incredibly easy in process redesign to have frequent delays that put pressure on planned launch dates. The critical time for stakeholder testing is often skimped. Initial versions are launched too early. Owners must be actively involved in testing the system and have veto rights, with the ROA central to this and ideally the overall project sponsor. Never launch a system such as this until success is guaranteed. 
4. Dramatically reduce cost and complexity. There is far too much paperwork, much of it confusing and repetitious. Delays and errors easily creep into the system. It is slow, costly and stressful. Weatherbys and the BHA should set clear improvement goals, e.g. to reduce racing administration total cost to £100 per owner, per horse; or to have every registration necessary on a one-page form that only has to be inputted once. So what went wrong with the recent Weatherbys online banking upgrade? It doesn’t appear to have had any testing whatsoever; no-one appears to have known much about it prior to launch, and it clearly wasn’t ready, as a number of modifications have already been necessary. Registering a new password and PIN number was far too laborious. Logging on to the new site takes about four times as long as previously, taking 21 key strokes. The new site was designed to enable the user to carry out tasks in one place. In practice though, and particularly if you are operating a number of accounts for different horses, it can be easier to carry out tasks separately by account. In other words, go on the site, select the account you want to operate, check the balance and recent transactions, pay the bill and move on to another account rather than checking balances in one section and then moving on to pay a lot of bills in another. The real disaster though came with the bank statements. Before, my wife had checked these, updated her spreadsheets, filed the VAT returns and received any refunds due by the middle of the month. To her dismay there was no VAT column on the new statements so it was just about impossible to do the VAT return without a separate spreadsheet being emailed to her. When she received this it was a very rudimentary document …. and so the story went on. We have documented a number of these other issues and sent them on to the ROA for discussion directly with Weatherbys.

The big picture on all of this is that if Weatherbys are going to be the lead body for the major administrative changes coming in in 2017, then they must adopt an owner-led change management process. And then on the smaller picture of the detail of all the procedures there has to be far more active testing. If Weatherbys aren’t up to the job, then this whole administrative task could be a prime candidate for market-testing and outsourcing. More about the argument for this in another blog, even if Queen Anne might well turn in her grave at the thought of Weatherbys losing its time-honoured right to manage so much of British racing.

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 “segway” from Beer Consumption to Growing Racehorse Ownership in British Racing – A Further Note on the BHA’s Growth Strategy

I was delighted to read of a research study done by the Mediterranean Neurological Institute concluding that moderate daily beer consumption reduces the risk of heart and circulatory diseases by a quarter. Apparently the phenols in the flavour act as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory and also protect the body against viruses. Here in the Hawling Institute we have also concluded through even more extensive research over many years that combining this with red wine drinking guarantees receipt of a telegram from the Queen on reaching your century.

So a number of our owners put this latest finding into practice this week at York for the Dante meeting, not least celebrating a game 4th by our horse Jolievitesse on the opening day. Readers of this blog will know that I believe York Racecourse sets the bar for the total owner and racegoer experience. They are continuing to invest heavily at the track, with prize-money this year increasing to £7m despite a £200,000 decrease in levy funding. Last year they achieved record turnover and attendances. Their £60m-plus investment in facilities for horses, horsemen and racegoers over the last 20 years has paid handsome dividends. Jolievitesse’s race was only Class 4 but had a prize fund of £15,000 with £9,700 for the winner but still £721 for the 4th. The 20-runner field will have guaranteed significant betting and substantial levy contribution. It is this virtuous circle that racing is striving to achieve on a broader basis.

We weren’t however debating racing politics after this fine run, but there was a fair bit of discussion about how good the York experience is, particularly when you are staying in country hotels and dining in excellent restaurants. If you’re in the area, do visit The Crown Inn at Roecliffe. I don’t know of any course that offers such good value, with champagne at £30 a bottle and Theakston’s best bitter at £3.30 a pint, readily available in their new bar set up to offer local beers. Indeed York makes a big point of the partnerships they have developed with local suppliers of beef, smoked salmon, trout and fine cheeses from Ryedale, Wensleydale and Hambleton. I bet you feel hungry now! Courses can do a lot more to showcase local produce. Cheltenham did so at the October meeting and it was a great success.

The racing at York, as usual, was top-class, not least the superb runs by So Mi Dar in the Musidora and Wings Of Desire in the Dante. John Gosden came up with a nice comment about his now Derby favourite, that what he most enjoys is “eating and sleeping”. If you add in drinking beer and wine as well, it would cover most of the Owners for Owners network!

So York racecourse definitely demonstrates what can be done to enthuse racehorse owners. At the BHA forum I attended at Newbury on 1st March, Richard Wayman made a typically strong presentation in which he balanced discussion on the disappointing contraction in the UK ownership base (horse population down 9% from 2008; steady decline in registered owners over the same period, down 17%) and an analysis of its causation (the poor economics of ownership in the UK; a need to strengthen owner engagement; insufficient promotion of ownership, not least in syndicates; and needlessly complex ownership structures, systems and fees) with an outline of a number of practical initiatives to improve the situation.

Obviously the key to prize-money is tied in with levy replacement and capturing racing’s rightful contribution from the offshore bookmakers. I’ve covered that before in the blog, so won’t touch on it again. Richard, though, emphasised that it is not all about prize-money and stated strongly that owners must feel valued within racing, and clearly trainers and racecourses are at the heart of that. There is also apparently going to be a major innovation to streamline ownership administration from early 2017 as well as a big push on ownership, particularly with a campaign to promote syndication. There will be a central ownership hub, close liaison with racecourses and the introduction of a code of conduct for syndicates, thereby ensuring far more transparency and helping prospective owners make a more informed choice.

As this was right at the heart of why we set up Owners for Owners, we feel vindicated. Time to reflect on this with a couple of pints of Donnington’s Best Bitter in The Plough at Ford, my local watering hole just round the corner from Martin Keighley’s stables. Maybe it’s time to think about a Plough partnership.

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.

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.

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 Importance of the Owner Experience – Comparing Our Wins at Marvellous Market Rasen vs. Skinflint Southwell

By email to: Simon Bazalgette, CEO, Jockey Club Racecourses; Richard Wayman, CEO, Racehorse Owners’ Association; Colin Booth, Chairman, Pip Kirkby, General Manager and Jane Hedley, Clerk of the Course, Market Rasen Racecourse; Tony Kelly, Managing Director, Arena Racing Company and Roderick Duncan, Clerk of the Course, Southwell Racecourse.

Dear All,

Earlier in the month, Owners for Owners had horses running on two consecutive days in very similar races. Shantou Magic ran on Sunday, 10th November in the Class 4, 2m 3f BDN Construction Novices Hurdle at Market Rasen, and Houndscourt ran the next day in the Class 4, 2m 4f 32Red Casino Novices Hurdle at Southwell. Both won. All the owners present were extremely pleased, and delighted for their respective horses. We won £4,548 with Shantou Magic and £3,195 with Houndscourt. In many ways these were fairly ordinary novice hurdles, of average quality and interest. Very few people will have clocked both horses – just typical horses running in typical races. However I am writing to all of you because the overall owner experience at the two courses was completely different and I felt it would be helpful to illustrate that comment with more detail. It seemed to me that these two races, at their respective courses, encapsulate the very different approaches to owners of Jockey Club Racecourses (JCR) and Arena Racing Company (ARC).

Let’s start with prize-money. During and immediately after the race, none of us as owners were thinking much about that. We were just overjoyed for our horses. But our prize-money at Southwell was considerably lower than at Market Rasen. If you look at the total win prize-money between both meetings, it was £29,329 for six races at Market Rasen (average £4,888) vs. £18,547 for seven races at Southwell (average £2,649). A marked difference. Yet again it illustrates the comment from Rachel Hood, President of the ROA, when talking about ARC (in the context of their refusal to sign the media rights prize-money agreement), that “Their business is about running sports stadia; they are putting profit before all other considerations and will pay as little as they can get away with for what they perceive to be their raw material – the runners and riders.” So on this specific criterion, JCR (and particularly Market Rasen) should be congratulated, with all the owners involved also appreciative that they have committed to increasing prize-money over the next few years, in marked contrast to ARC who have no plans to do likewise.

While prize-money is a critical issue, the quality of the owner experience when attending a particular racecourse is clearly driven by many other factors. So let me contrast the two courses, and follow through the actual behaviours encountered when we came into contact with various personnel. Alas there was little evidence of professional owner / customer management skills that might have been expected from an organisation such as ARC whose business competence is supposed to be managing sports stadia. Positive or negative experiences in the retail or leisure industry are usually generated by interpersonal encounters at a number of staff touch points. Southwell was lamentable.

We arrived at Market Rasen, parked the car and went over to the Owners & Trainers entrance, where we were greeted by a couple of friendly and knowledgeable members of staff. They welcomed us immediately, chatted about the weather, the going and our horse, and wished us well. We were given a programme and meal vouchers, and proceeded to the Owners and Trainers bar. It was Armed Forces Family Fun Day. There was a large crowd, numerous stalls and stands and a general buzz to the whole proceedings. In the paddock before our race, there were lots of owners and also Market Rasen personnel mingling with us. Our horse won and we were delighted to meet the parents of the race sponsors, who awarded us a prize and a lovely hamper of cheese. They had obviously studied the race and chatted to us about Shantou Magic’s future. Their son, the CEO of BDN Construction, was sponsoring a number of races that day. We went across to the winners’ room, where we were plied with as many glasses of champagne as we could drink and members of the Market Rasen executive came along to celebrate the occasion with us. Our trainer, Charlie Longsdon, has done very well at this course and everyone thanked us profusely for bringing our horse to the track. A great experience.

After staying overnight at Forest Pines Golf Resort nearby (with even a few of us braving the elements to fit in 18 holes on the Monday morning), we travelled down to Southwell, looking forward to a similarly enjoyable race-day experience. We were directed to park in a large puddle – not a good start. When arriving at the entrance, I wondered if racing had been cancelled, as staff took no notice of us and seemed in no hurry to let us in. We were completely ignored for several minutes. Grudgingly they eventually gave us an entry pass and we went off to meet up with co-owners. The Owners and Trainers bar and meal were perfectly acceptable. However, when we went into the paddock it was deserted at the start and clearly very few owners had bothered coming up to support their horse or the meeting. Houndscourt duly won (perhaps somewhat fortuitously) and we greeted him back in the winner’s enclosure. From then onwards, it felt as though everyone connected with Southwell just wanted to get us off the premises. It was the last race on the card. There was a desultory prize-giving with an individual who didn’t introduce himself, and we were ushered away for “a glass of champagne”. The one Southwell employee present could not have been more miserable if he tried. After a thimble full of champagne each, he refused to provide a top-up (“It’s against the rules”) even though three-quarters of the bottle remained (presumably he took it home?) and, as a true jobsworth, urged us to drink quickly so that he could wash up and leave. If it hadn’t been for the owners being on such a high, this would have been a dismal end to our long racing weekend.

So, Market Rasen clearly won the owner-experience race hands down. Congratulations, Mr. Booth, and please pass on our thanks to all your team. I’m sorry, Mr. Duncan, but Southwell appeared to us to be a track that is just milking the stadium asset and doesn’t really have much regard for us as owners. Obviously because ARC controls such a large percentage of fixtures we may have to return, but if we have a choice between visits to Market Rasen and Southwell, we’ll be heading to Lincolnshire every time. Increasingly, I’m sure that many owners will also feel the same about voting for other tracks rather than supporting those of ARC.

Yours sincerely,

JON HUGHES,
Owners for Owners.

Reader note: the Arena racecourses are Bath, Brighton, Chepstow, Doncaster, Fontwell, Yarmouth, Lingfield, Newcastle, Windsor, Sedgefield, Southwell, Uttoxeter, Wolverhampton and Worcester. None have signed up for the prize-money agreement with the Horsemen’s Group and the BHA. Jockey Club racecourses are Aintree, Carlisle, Cheltenham, Epsom, Exeter, Haydock, Huntingdon, Kempton, Market Rasen, Newmarket, Nottingham, Sandown, Warwick and Wincanton. They have all signed up for the Premier Tier Agreement on prize-money.

The Prize Money Challenge – £200m by 2020 and 50% ROO

As followers of the blog know, I’ve been looking at the economics of racing, starting with the lamentable state of owner prize money in the UK. Interestingly, when I went along to a recent Racehorse Owners’ Association presentation at Newbury on 20th September, this was definitely their number one issue because it is such a fundamental part of the whole fabric of racing.

The CEO, Richard Wayman, outlined the three key priorities for the ROA: firstly the negotiations with racecourses to secure a contractual obligation to inject money from media rights into prize money; secondly, supporting the case for fundamental legislative reform of the betting industry, particularly evasion of levy through offshore operations out of Gibraltar; and thirdly, improving the quality of the owner experience on the racecourses themselves. There was a Q&A session after Richard’s presentation, and I argued for a clear goal for prize money. That whole line of thinking appeared to be well received by the owners present.

The Owners for Owners Challenge is for a clear goal to be agreed of at least £200m of prize money available for owners by 2020, thereby ensuring that British racing is at least somewhere near parity with the French and that the return on ownership increases from 20p in the pound to nearer 50p.

There were three main reactions to this goal at Newbury. Apparently some years ago a very famous National Hunt owner was well reported as saying that “Owning a racehorse is a hobby, you shouldn’t expect to cover your costs and if you cannot afford it, don’t do it”. When a member of the audience mentioned this, there was no doubting whatsoever the views of the owners present. The whole mind-set around that statement was seen as ludicrous …. and yet as I said in the last blog, it is a relatively common one. Owners are injecting almost £0.5bn a year into the industry, and without an acceptable return the base of the sport will be eroded.

Another reaction was a challenge as to whether there was really an appetite across the owner population to fight for a fair and acceptable return on ownership. Quite clearly, once there are contractual prize money agreements in place with some racecourses, it will be very interesting indeed to see what the ROA, and in turn, owners are prepared to do with the racecourses that won’t sign up for a prize money increase as a result of the revenue secured through media rights. My own position is that we should do everything possible to support the courses that are prepared to increase prize money, and vote with our horses’ feet – don’t send them to the tracks that aren’t prepared to reward owners properly.

The final reaction was to do with the goal itself, or more accurately, the actions needed to achieve it. A goal of this magnitude cannot be achieved just by incremental tweaking around the margins of cost and revenue. It will need much more fundamental and transformational change. Furthermore, this will have to reflect the huge innovations under way in betting, with the migration to PC and smartphone platforms. The vast majority of the revenue needed for additional prize money has to come from betting. Either bookmakers are persuaded / forced to make a much bigger contribution, or the racing industry itself should push for changes in the betting landscape: indeed, could racing itself link up with major investors and launch its own suite of betting platforms, harnessing the most modern technologies? A number of our owners believe this is a route that should definitely be explored and evaluated. It may seem far-fetched at the moment, but step changes of this type could well be what racing needs. More about this on the next blog.