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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

More on the Prize-Money Challenge ….. and the Pleasure of Owning a Horse Such as Shantou Magic

Last Saturday, Anthony Honeyball was kind enough to host the sixth in our series of “Meet the Trainer” mornings at his yard on the Dorset / Somerset borders. Then over 20 owners met up at Wincanton Races to enjoy everything about Badger Ales day from the luxury of a private Owners for Owners box. A magnificent view, great food and an excellent opportunity for owners from various partnerships to meet up and enjoy each others’ company. Racing really is an excellent sport for bringing together people from all walks of life. The shared interest and love of the racehorse guarantees a common bond.

We had no sooner driven back from Wincanton than a number of us headed north for Market Rasen to see Shantou Magic on Sunday, 10th November, and then Houndscourt at Southwell the following day – a Lincolnshire trip that most definitely paid off. Some of us stayed up there and even managed a game of golf at Forest Pines in between the races.

The Timeform review of Shantou Magic’s race says everything: “Followed up his Fontwell success with consummate ease, value for considerably more than the margin of victory; mid-field, travelled smoothly, crept closer from 5th, chased leader approaching next, led 3 out, in command 2 out, forged clear; created a good impression, and is well worth his place in better company.” The dreams have always been alive, but have now rocketed to a different level. One of the owners sent me a smashing email describing himself as “Mr. Excited from Hampshire”. The Timeform rating is 133p – the same as Taquin Du Seuil at this stage last year, who went on to win the Challow by 9 lengths and started at 6/1 for the Neptune at the Cheltenham Festival. My response was, “I think I need to go and lie down!” Charlie Longsdon is going to let the horse have a short holiday now, having had two runs in close succession, and he will reappear after Christmas, possibly in the Challow at Newbury or the Leamington Spa at Warwick, or even a big handicap hurdle, depending on the mark.

In the glorious moments of the race and immediately afterwards, I don’t think any of us were thinking about prize-money. It was just the sheer joy of owning a potential star, and all the dreams and aspirations that flow from that. But clearly, prize-money does matter (and by the way, in the next blog I am going to compare and contrast the way in which Market Rasen treated the owners, as opposed to ARC’s Southwell).

On the bigger stage, the Australian turf authorities have acknowledged this with their recent announcement that they are going to create a £10.5m end-of-season championship meeting – appropriately enough, called “The Championships” – containing eight Group 1s and the world’s richest mile race. It will kick off on 12th and 19th April 2014 in Sydney, and follows on from the Dubai World Cup on 29th March. The goal is to make it “the greatest event for racing in the Southern Hemisphere”. Their 1m 2f race will be worth £2.3m; the 6f, £1.5m; and the Doncaster Mile, £3m. That definitely puts the poor old prize-money at Kempton and Doncaster UK, and our pathetic start to the Flat, in perspective.

While still in Australia, the Melbourne Cup on 5th November had total prize-money of almost £4m. Not bad for a 2m handicap. The winner picked up almost £2.5m, the 2nd, £0.5m, the 3rd, over £0.25m, and even the 6th, 7th and 8th each had over £80,000. These prizes really matter – I’ve already commented on the increasing disparities building up between Breeder’s Cup in the US, the Arc meeting at Longchamp and the Dubai World Cup, and Ascot’s Champions’ Day. Global owners and breeders will increasingly migrate away from the UK to these more lucrative locations – a huge concern for the UK racehorse industry.

Finally, back to the Jumps. On 6th November, there was an ARC meeting at Chepstow and a jumps meeting at Enghien, north of Paris. The total prize-money at Chepstow was £32,552. Three races had win prize-money of a mere £1,949, and a derisory £143 for 4th. By contrast, Enghien had total prize-money of £264,210. One of the more valuable races on the card – a 2m 1f chase for 4yos – had prize-money of £44,713, the winner picked up £21,463 and the 5th, £2,012. For each of six of their seven races, the single race prize-money was more than the total pot at Chepstow. I intend to discuss French jumps racing with all our trainers. Our next National Hunt purchase will be set up as a partnership aiming to go racing in France as well as the UK.

À bientôt, mes amis!