Half Way in the 100-Day Campaign and we Already have a Result – BHA Announces a Recovery of Racing Plan …. But There is Still a Chasm to Cross

On 12th July, Ged Shields and I launched our Blueprint for Racehorse Ownership in the UK: Making retention and acquisition of owners the number 1 goal of a racing recovery plan, and since then we’ve been lobbying all the key stakeholders across the sport to design, launch and implement one. An enormous amount of time has been spent on Zoom conference calls as well as successfully launching a micro web site, www.keepownersinracing.com, where we’re building up a bank of Zoom videos and blogs in pursuit of our cause. The whole motivation is to encourage the top table of racing to work collaboratively and kick on with urgency to launch major initiatives designed to retain owners in the sport. At the heart of that is a requirement for substantially improved funding of the sport, not least to boost prize-money and radical reform to capitalise on the opportunity presented by the pandemic. A major milestone was reached on 25th August when Nick Rust, the outgoing CEO of the BHA, announced the launch of a Recovery Plan. While this was an encouraging step forward, there is still a huge amount of work to be done and, indeed, many owners and pundits, such as the Racing Post, were less than complimentary because it seemed to be more a “plan for a plan” rather than a robust set of initiatives and actions. We’ll doubtless see the evolution of the plan through the autumn.

If you haven’t already done so, please sign up on www.keepownersinracing.com and you’ll receive all the blogs before they are publicly released. Here are four from the collection that clearly show where Ged and I are coming from.

SIGNING THE PLEDGE – AND WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT GOING TEETOTAL

At the heart of our Campaign to Keep Owners in Racing we have advocated a strongly collaborative approach to be adopted by all the leaders of British racing. Maintaining unity and common purpose is vital, but poses a considerable challenge. Racing has never been more fractured; vested interests and protectionism prevail; trust and transparency are noticeable by their absence; frustrations are building rapidly and threaten to blow strained relationships apart. The very last thing that racing needs after the damage already done by the pandemic is a self-inflicted wound of its own creation.

You only have to consider TLAs – the curse of three-letter acronyms – to understand the cat’s cradle complexity of our sport: BHA, RCA, THG, ROA, (HR)BLB, NTF, GBR, JCR, ARC, TBA, ABB, TRF, RSA, PJA. Corralling this lot is a complete nightmare and raises the question of whether it is even achievable, and whether racing needs fundamental restructuring of its governance: which we will revisit in the blog soon.

In the immediate future, Q3 / Q4 2020, our recommendation is for top leaders in the sport to produce a one-page Pledge summarising the way forward for British Racing, a statement on required collaboration and ten key actions, which all stakeholders must sign up to. Such a pledge provides much-needed vision and focus, and will be a real spur to leadership endeavour. The actions must be bold enough to enable our sport to recover from the crisis. We fear that many owners are already leaving the sport, or planning to do so, and this will cause real damage. Our call to arms is for a Racing Recovery Plan – RRP. Let’s get on with it – PDQ.

“MONEY, MONEY, MONEY” – IT’S A HORSEMEN’S WORLD

Our 100-day campaign to apply pressure on British Racing to develop a highly practical Recovery of Racing Plan broadly coincides with the first 100 days in office of the new Chairman of the Horsemen’s Group and President of the Racehorse Owners Association, Charlie Parker. Without any doubt he has the hottest seat in the sport, and we wish him well. What he achieves (or doesn’t) during Q3 / Q4, particularly on media rights transparency and apportionment, will have a huge impact on racing and ownership.

All roads, inevitably, lead back to the dire, unsustainable state of racing’s finances and the urgent need for cross-industry agreement on the most effective ways of harnessing new income streams. Without that, we all flounder. Mark Johnston, in our Perspectives in Racing film, argues that applying sticking-plaster to the problem has minimal impact and that we now need to be coming up with financial initiatives that “cross the gaping chasm”.

We believe that there is a need to generate £200m+ of annual income and that there are three principal ways of achieving that goal. Firstly, work with government at ministerial level on a second round of Levy development and reform. That was on the table in 2018 and some of racing’s leadership, for whatever reason, made a disastrous decision not to pursue it. Secondly, devise a much fairer revenue-sharing deal with the racecourses on media rights by the end of this year and then extend it into a much stronger media pooling operation. Thirdly, develop a betting strategy that targets the global gambling market through betting innovation and Tote co-mingling with other countries. And, of course, do everything possible to retain owners with the promise of more prize-money.

There is no shortage of income to be picked up – as we say, “Money, money, money”. Racing’s leadership needs to stop falling out over dividing cakes and get on with producing a radical new funding plan that bakes an altogether bigger and different one.

THE BASE OF THE PYRAMID CRUMBLES – IGNORE AT YOUR PERIL

British racing is a big industry, and at the top tier of the sport a considerable amount of money can be made. In the Blueprint we examined the profitability of all the stakeholders. In 2019, the aggregate of the top five yearling sales in England, France and Ireland made £250m for their consignors. The annual income earned from the top stallions at Coolmore, Godolphin and Juddmonte exceeded £200m. Despite all the aggressive noises being made by certain Flat trainers, the top 20 trainers in the UK make significantly more profit than the bottom 20 racecourses. It would be easy to conclude, perhaps unfairly, that the most vociferous members of the training community wish to maximise their returns even further. The platinum layer of the sport is being run by the few, for the few, with an over-concentration of income in the hands of those who don’t just make significant money every week of the year but also sit astride the downstream value chain that accrues from breeding rights.

How different it is at the bottom of the pyramid. The grass roots of our sport cover the vast majority of trainers, breeders, owners and horses. If the financial returns were terrible pre-pandemic, then they are nothing short of catastrophic now and the situation is only going to get worse. The majority of trainers and breeders are either technically insolvent or teetering on the edge of it unless they have other sources of income, and of course the vast majority of owners whose horses are running primarily at classes 4, 5 or 6 are losing on average 93p in the £ every year, with the returns not even covering the raceday costs of getting horses to the track.

These owners are spending £527m a year, to lose a collective £428m. If our forecast is correct, there will be a 20% contraction in the owner base over the next five years, which will lead to an immediate loss of £124m. But the far bigger damage is the 1:7 multiplier that leads to a much greater financial hit of £868m as the ownership contraction ripples through bloodstock, levy yield, media rights, racecourse attendance and the whole ecosystem of suppliers connected to training and racing.

Racing ignores the grass roots at its peril. This is where the contraction will be most felt, and hit hardest. We implore the leadership of the sport to produce, with urgency, a Racing Recovery Plan. Without that, the pyramid crumbles.

9-POINT RECOVERY PLAN FOR BRITISH RACING – A BIT OF A CURATE’S EGG

In the 1890s, Punch magazine ran a series of cartoons about a timid curate eating breakfast with his bishop. On being told by the bishop that he seemed to have a bad egg, the curate piped up: “Oh no, my lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!” Seems an appropriate comment for British racing’s recovery plan, which made its appearance on Tuesday 25th August.

When we launched the blueprint in mid-July we challenged the top table of racing to produce a post-pandemic recovery plan, with retention and acquisition of owners as its #1 goal. Behaviourally we wanted the stakeholders to work collaboratively, proactively and urgently on it; analytically they needed to create a comprehensive, wide-ranging, multi-faceted plan of action with two clear phases of immediate initiatives in Q3-Q4 2020, and then longer-term, more transformational change in 2021-2025; and most importantly, it had to be operationally deliverable through practical, robust, well-defined projects. It couldn’t just be about papering over the cracks – there is a chasm to cross, because the only way in which British racing can be properly sustainable is through securing at least £250m of additional income while fundamentally reforming the sport. The pandemic presents a one-off opportunity to reimagine the future and embrace the “next normal”.

That the key stakeholders, within 50 days of our challenge, have produced a recovery plan is commendable and we applaud their efforts. However, rather than a set of very practical actions, Nick Rust, outgoing CEO of the BHA, launched nine broad goals, which unfortunately disappointed a lot of owners and certainly the pundits of the Racing Post, the editor Tom Kerr being quite caustic in his comment that: “as with Coronavirus itself it is not the diagnosis but the cure that is of utmost significance. For that, the wait continues.” To be fair to the stakeholders, while the nine goals seem to be “a plan for a plan”, there will doubtless be more specific recommendations for action soon – not least the publication of the long-awaited Ownership Strategy, under development since 2017. It had better be good!

We will scrutinise these ongoing developments and fervently hope that we don’t have to echo Punch, in the final issue in 1992 before it went under, when the cartoon was updated with a considerably more emboldened curate, who replied to the bishop: “This f***ing egg’s bad!” For racing’s sake, it can’t be.

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.

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.

Do You See the Racing and Ownership Cup as Half Full or Half Empty Post-Lockdown? More Storm Clouds are Building and we Desperately Need a Racing Recovery Plan

Did Royal Ascot work for you? I doubt if there’s ever been a stranger race meeting there since 1711, but full marks to everyone involved in staging the meeting behind closed doors, and there were certainly lots of innovations to keep everyone engaged and (relatively) amused. Of course, there was no Queen, no royal procession, no fancy hats or frocks (so no dress codes), no overseas jockeys, no owners and no bookmakers. There were a few trainers present, who privately were probably thinking that this was ideal racing with no pesky owners to cause problems and a completely uninterrupted focus on their steeds. They may well have bemoaned the slashing of prize-money that was halved to a total of £3.7m, spread over 36 races and the five days of the meeting, but it’s definitely worth emphasising that this huge reduction in pots had zero impact on the quality of horses that raced across Ascot Heath, nor on the total number of entries or runners. It was very much “business as usual” – if you can say that about the bizarre world of lockdown racing.

The TV channels tried ever so hard to make the meeting engaging for owners and racing fans at home, as did Ascot itself. There were virtual racecards, 360 degree parade-ring cameras, Zoom interviews with owners at home, racing tips aplenty, recipes and cocktail recommendations for drinks such as Absolut Passion, colouring pages (???) and even virtual singing around the bandstand. It was encouraging that ITV was rewarded with its highest viewing figures for terrestrial TV since 2012, with an average for its 20 hours of broadcasting of 1.2 million viewers, and they had even more than that to watch Stradivarius romp home in the Gold Cup. What a fabulous horse he is – and I’m hoping that one day Scented Lily, the broodmare we own with friends and who is currently in foal to Getaway, will have a date with this superstar.

Unfortunately though, half-way through the month, normal hostilities were resumed again between the Horsemen’s Group and the Racecourse Association over the vexed subject of prize-money – or rather, the lack of executive contribution by some racecourses towards prize-money since racing resumed on 1st June. The collaborative spirit of the Resumption of Racing Group that so impressed us all will struggle to survive threats of legal action and accusations of anti-competitive collusion by horsemen against the tracks. This breakdown in working relations is one of the reasons that I fear storm clouds are building, as it will be absolutely vital that from today onwards – National Hunt has finally resumed – the Resumption of Racing Group is transformed into a Recovery of Racing Group to address the inevitable contraction of ownership that is coming, and the huge knock-on effect of that across the whole industry.

Why is my cup half-empty? Back in 2016 the BHA and ROA commissioned an excellent National Racehorse Owners Survey from a specialist sports consultancy, Two Circles. I reported on their findings in this blog on 15th August and 1st September that year. Their analysis and findings were well presented, and although they didn’t frame them in the way that I am about to do, I certainly agreed with their conclusions.

At university, where I studied social psychology, I was impressed by the concept of “expectation theory” to explain the motivation of individuals. Sociologists and psychologists never make anything simple, of course, but the basic concept was that each individual has a complex set of their own expectations, and whether these are or are not met directly influences their motivation to do something. It is also a two-factor theory, which means that the factors that prompt you to do something are not necessarily the same as those that might dissuade you. Anyway, I applied that approach to ownership and, as you can see in the diagram, I concluded that the factors that bring owners into the sport are to do with the emotional return that they receive on their ownership (excitement, glamour, status, close contact with their beautiful horse etc.), whereas those that drive them out are directly connected with poor financial return (bad prize-money, high costs, irritating fees and charges etc.) I was hoping that after 2016, racing’s leadership would develop a whole set of strategies to boost owner acquisition (bringing new owners and their money into the sport), together with another set to foster owner retention (reducing the churn rate of owners). I was tolerant about the relative lack of action, and then encouraged again in 2018 when the ROA announced that they were leading the development and implementation of a new Ownership Strategy. After three years without sight of it, my tolerance is just about exhausted. Does anyone know where it is, what it says, what it is designed to achieve and how it will be implemented?

If you look over your shoulder, though, all you can see o4n the ownership front is storm clouds. When racing resumed on 1st June, it was clumsily stated that owners would not be able to go racing as they were not deemed to be “essential”. That was terribly received. Owners are funding the sport and, using my two-factor model, the emotional return has been massively reduced (as until recently they could neither see their horses in the stables nor go racing) while the financial return has similarly contracted (with reduced prize-money, not least because of the reluctance of racecourses to make their executive contribution). Owner frustration has certainly increased, and this has been acknowledged by the BHA, ROA and RCA. Indeed, as I write this blog I’ve just seen a letter from the chief executive of the ROA, Charlie Liverton, explaining that “Owners contribute so much to the sport and it has been frustrating not to be on the track to see their horses run. Their patience and loyalty have been very much appreciated during this challenging period.” Much appreciated, Mr. Liverton, and I look forward to hearing what racing is now going to do, going forward, to persuade me and co-owners to expand our involvement in the sport, or as a minimum, maintain it at current levels.

Without that, racing is heading for deep trouble. In the period after the last financial crisis of 2008/09, owners and horses in training declined in a straight line for seven years. Is there any reason why this won’t happen again? Actually, and filling the cup to the brim, I believe that a Recovery of Racing Group could implement a set of initiatives to have a hugely beneficial impact on racing and ownership, and significantly mitigate this contraction. Such is the level of enthusiasm for this approach that I’ve persuaded a friend and fellow owner, Ged Shields, to work with me on the development of a blueprint for a recovery programme. We intend to release it after the Derby, and it will be detailed in the next 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.

Why Cheltenham Should be a Five-Day Festival – Even Though My Knees, Liver and Wallet will Struggle to Cope

When you’re in the stands at Prestbury Park and look across to Cleeve Hill, you’ll see the radio masts at the top. Travel a few miles beyond them in a straight line and you’ll get to my house. I sometimes say (though it isn’t strictly true) that if you slip the hand-brake on my car, it’s downhill all the way to the members’ car park. I’m here primarily because I adore Cheltenham Races and the Cotswolds. So do most of my friends, many of whom I am going to antagonise with this blog, so apologies in advance.

Here is my prescription for a proposed new Festival – make it five days; have the Gold Cup as the centrepiece on the Saturday; reduce the number of races to six per day; frame extremely valuable handicaps to end each day; ensure that these races enable grass-roots owners to have runners; and set a target for 300,000+ attendees.

In an ideal world, my personal preference would have been for a two-day, concentrated event – a National Hunt Breeders’ Cup meeting, or something similar to the superb Dublin Festival of Racing at Leopardstown in February. Putting all the top races together in a two-day extravaganza would be fabulous, but there is clearly no chance whatsoever of that occurring. Cheltenham over the years has quite rightly made the event bigger and broadened its appeal. All the arguments against this on the basis of dilution appear pretty weak, and really we have to regard the Festival as one of British Racing’s most valuable assets. Let’s make it bigger and better, as soon as possible.

The starting point is to do with the bigger picture of British Racing, which seems to be in decline in terms of ownership and racecourse attendance. Owner numbers have been on a steady downward trajectory throughout most of the past decade, and despite the ambitious goal of seven million racecourse attendances by 2020 – set as a key target of racing’s Strategy for Growth – the reality is unfortunately that numbers have dropped, to 5.62 million last year, from 6.13 million in 2015. There are doubtless quite a few structural factors behind this, and it is likely to be impossible to reverse these declines without significant change on a broad but targeted front. Attracting new racegoers into the sport is absolutely essential, and the demand appears to be strong for festivals and marquee days, which is something that the racecourse groups can’t afford to ignore. Without going into too much detail, why doesn’t racing incorporate a programme of top-quality Saturday events throughout the year, designed to appeal to this demand. One of the arguments will always be that it would clash with football or other sporting events but, for starters, how about a sequence of even bigger racedays for the Aintree Grand National, Epsom Derby, York’s Melbourne Cup (aka the Ebor), Ascot’s Champions’ Day, Haydock’s Betfair meeting and, of course, Cheltenham and The Festival (which I’ve noticed is now trademarked, with by-lines such as The Best Spectacle in Sport and In March, the Only Place to Be.

From the ownership standpoint, all roads lead to Cheltenham. It’s incredible that for this year’s Festival there are 928 entries for the 10 handicaps alone, including 156 for the Martin Pipe, 148 for the Coral Cup, 99 for the County Hurdle and 96 for a race that I can’t even remember what it’s now called – the Plate. All owners, and particularly those at the grass-roots level, want to be part of the Festival. For trainers it is a symbol of success to have runners, never mind winners, and for staff it is hugely motivating to lead up the horses in the famous Cheltenham amphitheatre. The ideal would be to frame races to enable broader participation, and it would be terrific if every day there were hugely valuable handicaps that put significant winnings into the hands of lesser trainers and owners. It wouldn’t be difficult to design races to facilitate that. Indeed, I’ll be at the forefront of a campaign for a syndicate series that has its final at the Festival. These types of races could also be linked in with nationwide qualifiers that would spread the wealth and increase field sizes at the lesser tracks.

Many will characterise the expansion of the Festival as commercial greed, designed to “milk” the racegoer and punter. There are already lots of events and sideshows around the Festival that a lot of people dislike. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea to participate in The Park, which is, apparently, “a totally unique area ….. offering an alternative experience ….. the Insta-worthy place to be” (whatever this might mean). But we shouldn’t belittle the marketing talent that is going into the Festival, and the considerable contribution made by Jockey Club Racecourses to prize-money as a result. In 2010 this was £13m per year, and by the end of the decade it has climbed to £27.1m. Hats off to JCR!

Over to Martin St. Quinton, the new Chairman of Cheltenham, not only to grab this commercial opportunity with both hands but to bring in a broader audience of racegoers, especially when the Gold Cup is on a Saturday. If a few of the traditional fans reduce their attendance or even drop by the wayside, so be it. As one of them, I’m sure I’ll adapt, even if the physical demands are becoming more onerous with age. But doubtless the Cheltenham roar at the beginning of each day will make attendance worthwhile …. and when one of my horses wins the Syndicate Final on the Saturday of Cheltenham, I’ll be in seventh heaven. Bring it on!

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.

Harold Macmillan Said that Governments were Brought Down by “Events, dear boy, events”. Racing has had Two Big Events in February – Fast and Furious Response to Equine Flu and Now The Beckett Boycott Against ARC. Are They Appropriate Responses or Over-Reactions?

If I ever take part in a pub quiz on racing (which is extremely unlikely), at least I’d be able to ask the question which was “Which National Hunt horse won the first race back after the great equine flu epidemic – which didn’t happen – of February 2019?” Easy, really – it was our horse Acey Milan, who won over an inadequate trip at Plumpton on 13th February. Well done, Ace!

Either side of the weekend of 9th and 10th February, British racing had introduced a six-day lockdown of 174 yards following the discovery of a US strain of equine flu at the yard of Donald McCain in Cheshire. A fast and furious wave of biosecurity activity took place as thousands of horses were tested for this highly contagious virus. No racing took place in the UK; yards were disinfected, either through low-tech spraying or high-tech fogging machines; horse movements were curtailed; and an enormous range of views expressed. A number of trainers, such as Charlie Mann, Nigel Twiston-Davies and Nick Williams, became very hot under the collar, saying that it was a “massive over-reaction” by the BHA and not even the vets seemed able to agree on the appropriateness of the lockdown and various measures. The Veterinary Committee of the BHA played a straight bat and were highly supportive, whereas some of the grass-roots practitioners such as Peter Ramzan of Rossdales in Newmarket and Ben Brain, the UK’s foremost wind surgeon, were very sceptical. After six days and a huge amount of coverage in the media, racing resumed and fortunately only a total of ten racehorses tested positive. Normal service was resumed – other than for the trainers who had not had their animals vaccinated in the past six months. This caused some resentment, as it meant that some top-class horses missed their Cheltenham preparatory races, and because there was no grace period, the BHA had in effect changed the vaccination rule overnight. In their defence, they had issued an “advisory” notice about vaccination earlier.

My personal view is that one of the BHA’s primary objectives is properly to protect racing’s future, and one key element of that has to be equine welfare. The horse must genuinely come first. Without the extensive testing of horses in the lockdown period, it would have been impossible to gauge whether the UK was on the verge of an epidemic; fortunately that was not the case, but imagine the public outcry if we had been. It may well be that a very small number of horses always get equine flu, but it goes undetected or unreported. The whole episode certainly demonstrated that “racing matters” in the eyes of the public, and not just for racegoers and punters. A lot of column inches were dedicated to the equine flu cases in all the newspapers, as well as extensive reporting on TV. The general consensus seemed to be that temporary inconvenience through the lockdown was far better than having an epidemic on your hands. The BHA took the right steps to contain it even if, with hindsight, it might have contained itself.

And then at the end of February another “event” broke out, this time a major row over prize-money as a result of ARC’s precipitate decision to cut its prize-money allocation by £2.7m while, through its actions, excluding itself from accessing a further £4.5m from the Levy Board through the Appearance Money Scheme. The last time there had been a boycott of racing was at Worcester a few years ago, when trainers withdrew all their horses with the exception of one, who had a walk-over for Nigel Twiston-Davies who then allocated the prize-money between all other trainers in the “race”. This time the President-Elect of the National Trainers’ Federation, Ralph Beckett, orchestrated an aggressive response to ARC with the withdrawal of horses in a couple of novice races at Lingfield before proposing a second wave attack with trainers being persuaded not to make entries at Fontwell, Lingfield, Newcastle and Southwell next week. Anyone who saw Ralph being interviewed by Nick Luck last Sunday could not have failed to be impressed by his cogent attack on ARC and his barely concealed anger. It was definitely a case of Bombardier Beckett in the trenches with the pins out of the grenades, ready, willing and able to go over the top on behalf of racing, and particularly the grass-roots owner.

I have every sympathy with the stance being taken by the NTF and indeed had instructed all the Owners for Owners trainers not to enter our horses in any races where the total prize-money is less than £4,000, unless there is a compelling reason to do so. I’ve just ensured that our horse Sojourn is withdrawn from Fontwell next week and will race at Wincanton instead, while Melekhov also won’t go to Fontwell but be switched to Taunton. When these decisions were made, the prize-money was over 50% higher at the non-ARC tracks. Since then, ARC has made what appears to be a “concession” by temporarily reassigning prize-money from more valuable races to those of lower grade, thereby unlocking levy funding. This doesn’t strike me as much of a concession, as no new money is being found; it’s just a different way of slicing the prize-money cake.

Direct action, boycotts, aggressive attacks on fellow stakeholders isn’t really the way to manage British Racing, and it’s really necessary for the current tripartite structure to contain the aggression and re-channel it on to problem-solving and solutions. The macro-economic reality is that while no-one knows the precise figures, the government’s decision to reduce the stakes on fixed-odds betting terminals to £2 is guaranteed to lead to the closure of a substantial number of betting shops thereby significantly reducing levy yields and media rights payments. Some commentators believe that £40-60m of annual income could be lost, which puts the ARC reductions into perspective. Racing, as a matter of urgency, needs to create a strategic plan of how it is going to boost income from the middle of this year onwards, or a lot more grenades are going to be thrown around.

Harold Macmillan would surely have identified with the way that “events” can blow up in your face, just like grenades.

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Around the World with Three Horses – From the Sublime to the Ridiculous. Melbourne, Kentucky and Market Rasen.

I’m sure many readers of the blog were absorbed in watching the tremendous global racing at Flemington, Australia, and Churchill Downs in Kentucky. However I suspect not many of you were watching closely an amusing result at Market Rasen recently. More on that to follow.

First a personal recollection. Back in my consulting days I worked for one of the big global pharmaceutical companies and went out to Australia as part of a merger integration exercise. That had me visiting a manufacturing facility just outside Melbourne when the iconic Cup was on. Although it’s a public holiday in Australia, and much as I pleaded to be given time off to go to the race, the client insisted that I took part in a riveting workshop on procurement, the supply chain and the interfaces with MRP systems. I never forgave them! One of the most amusing features though was that the hotel where we were staying was “party central”. I’ve never seen so many people dressed to the nines, taking part in lunchtime revelries. None had any intention of actually going to watch the race, which was just an excuse for a big party. I was even warned to take care walking around the hotel corridors, as a Melbourne Cup tradition is for riotous Australian lovelies to be on the prowl and if they find a man they fancy, who is wearing a tie, they cut it in half. All other details will remain confidential; what happens on consulting assignments, stays on consulting assignments!

Anyway, this year’s win by Cross Counter was, I thought, an absolute belter with the European raiders dominating. It always surprises me that so many horses are taken over, as apparently it costs £70k and our record has been pretty mixed since Vintage Crop won it 25 years ago for Dermot Weld. I’m not quite sure how many of us in Owners for Owners would be persuaded to go, although I suppose that if we had a magnificent horse capable of racing in the Cup, we’d give it a go. Charlie Appleby and Sheikh Mohamed must have been thrilled with the result, and it capped a magnificent season with Godolphin globally winning 30 Gr.1s. Ian Williams was certainly enormously impressed by the whole experience (with or without his tie?), and commented about the event that: “It is huge. You don’t feel it until you get here and feel the enthusiasm, not only from the people of Melbourne but of Australia. It’s a bigger event than you can ever imagine. They keep raising the bar. It is a wonderful experience.” And as for the prize-money - £2,456,647 to the winner, £578,034 to the 2nd, £173,410 to the 3rd, and even the 12th placed horse picked up £86,785. Rapid re-think: OfO would definitely send a horse there!

On the other side of the world, Enable duly showed her typical brilliance and determination to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf at Churchill Downs as she made history by becoming the first Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner to win the Breeders’ Cup in the same season. Frankie Dettori’s ride was right from the top drawer, being prepared to bring her wide on the home turn in search of the quicker fresh ground. What a top-class filly Enable has become.

As ever there were a few controversies. In both Melbourne and Churchill Downs there were whip issues: Christophe Soumillon made outrageous use of it in the Breeders’ Cup Classic and Hugh Bowman was no better in Australia. This was shocking for racing, and unfortunately very topical, as South Africa are currently experimenting with a race ban on jockeys whipping their mounts as part of the growing concern of animal rights activists and younger race spectators. On the welfare front there was also a disaster in Melbourne when The Cliffsofmoher suffered a fatal injury. Alas, Flemington has a bad record and they clearly need to address this as a priority in the same way that Aintree did for the Grand National.

So what happened at Market Rasen? Without making light of the seriousness of the whip issue, a horse called L’es Fremantle probably needed a bomb under him to win. As a 7yo with 55 defeats and not a win to his name, he appeared to have no chance whatsoever in a handicap chase on 8th November. In 41 of his previous races he had been 100/1+ and once started at the ludicrous odds of 300/1. He was bought for £600 at the Ascot sales in October 2012, so had enjoyed six years of luxurious living at Michael Chapman’s yard at the course, without feeling any need to repay their generosity. Michael wryly commented after the race that: “He is not very good-looking, he’s a bit of an ugly duckling, though everybody loves him. He likes to bite people, but he’s not vicious.” He was initially named by his owners (surprise, surprise) after their friend, Les, who lived in Fremantle, Australia. But on that marvellous day of 8th November he stayed on strongly to win his race, after one of the longest losing runs ever in UK racing history. I love results like this, and I suspect connections weren’t particularly bothered that the miserly prize was £3,898. I doubt they will be booking his flight to Melbourne. Racing Post signed off their report by saying: “History suggests he’s unlikely to follow up.” Bless him!

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Economic Sustainability of Trainers, Part 4: Time to Diagnose the Illness and Prescribe the Medicine

Over the last three blogs I’ve been arguing that there is a major problem with the economic viability of the training profession in this country, and it should be a strategic aim of British Racing to acknowledge and address it. Indeed the problem isn’t just in the UK, and I read an article last week about the position in Ireland which was described as “perilous”, with the author advocating considerable changes to the internal economy of the sport. It argued that the problem at the grassroots trainer level is the equivalent of the “squeezed middle” in the wider economy, and I wouldn’t disagree with that. Finally, to illustrate this, I noted that Martin Hill had his last runner recently, Scorpion Star, at Newton Abbot before announcing that he was throwing in the towel.

In my first blog on this subject I put trainers into one of three tiers, and without any doubt it is the small and medium-sized who are really struggling to survive. Without being melodramatic, it could be that a contraction in the training ranks might soon be staring the BHA in the face, particularly if there are any wider economic crises, Brexit negotiations collapse or a Labour government of Corbynistas comes into power. Imagine the economic shock if the VAT concession to owners were scrapped. However, rather than just concentrating on the potential crisis it is more helpful to brainstorm potential solutions, while recognising that there are many interdependencies between them and there is no magic wand or miraculous medicine. I’ve grouped the ideas around three broad themes.

1. Strengthen Trainer Competence and Capability

• Identify the extent of the problem. The BHA and the National Trainers’ Federation should organise an assessment of the trainer ranks. Identify the problems, their impact and the inadequacies.
• Change trainer attitudes and mind-sets. As a group they are very hard to help, and extremely conservative by nature. Competition rather than collaboration rules the day. That needs to change.
• Focus on business models and business skills. Most trainers score highly on training skills and abysmally on business skills. Explicit business plans for success are noticeable by their absence.
• Revamp the training of trainers. The training curriculum is old-fashioned and overly focused on knowledge and regulatory requirements. It needs to become much more experiential.
• Design an improvement programme. Despite the inevitable apathy and cynicism there is a major need for across-the-range improvement in trainer skills and behaviour. That requires coaching.
• Produce toolkits and apps. Rather than expect trainers to go to classrooms, the teachers need to go to the trainers. The NTF should put together a series of user-friendly apps and toolkits.

2. Innovate in Business and Operating Models

• Challenge the closed system. There are 500-700 trainers in the UK, with the vast majority of them having been in the industry since teenage days. They have had little exposure to anything else.
• Illustrate benchmarks and best practice. Every trainer seems to have a naïve belief that they are doing everything right. Arrogance and stupidity is a pretty deadly combination. Challenge it.
• Attract more owners. Trainers are the gate-keepers to the industry, from an ownership perspective. They need a lot more help to adopt modern marketing, promotional and communication techniques.
• Tune in to owner expertise. Many trainers wouldn’t have a clue about the business skills of their owners. Major owners are potential benefactors to trainers, who need to tune in to that network.
• Define the business plan. Doing well, winning more races and surviving financially is not a plan. Trainers need to understand the different elements of successful operating models, and adopt them.
• Grow the revenue. Often easier said than done, particularly with insultingly low levels of prize-money. Having said that, how many trainers have an explicit plan to improve financial return on assets?
• Reduce the cost base. As an example, the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association has a collective purchasing scheme. How many trainers participate in it? Less than 10%? Says everything.

3. Improve the Economics of British Racing for Grassroots Trainers

• Address over-concentration at the top. The elite tier of owners, trainers and breeders are taking a disproportionate amount out of the sport. In effect they are being supported by the lower tiers.
• Spread the wealth. The owners, trainers and breeders of top horses already benefit hugely from downstream breeding. They are appropriating far too much money from the sport. Cap the prize-money for Group and Graded races. Redirect it into lesser racing.
• Redistribute prize-money and reduce certain types of race. Again, there are far too many races at Listed level on the Flat, or beginners’ / novice chases, that have small fields and are milked by Tier 1 trainers. Reduce them and have a substantial increase in claiming type races, rather than handicaps.
• Restrict the number of runners in the same ownership. No trainer or owner should be allowed to have more than two horses in any race. The top tier are manipulating races through their competitive and numerical strength.
• Develop a race series for the middle market. Help the smaller trainers by introducing a series of races confined to trainers with, say, fewer than 50 horses.
• Copy the French model on handicaps. The vast majority of grassroots trainers are winning primarily at handicap level. Richard Hughes has argued wisely that increases in handicap ratings should only apply to the winner. Adopt the French system. Put the winner up in the weights and reduce all the other horses.
• Copy the French model on placed prize-money. Again in France, the second-place money is half that of the winner. In England it is usually far less than that. The trickle down of total prize-money percentages to trainers is a lifeline, and this would be a big financial contribution.

That’s as far as I need to go, I think! I’ve brainstormed twenty ideas. Doubtless some of them will be seen as totally impractical and / or will disturb the cosy cronyism at the top of the sport. A working party of trainers, I’m sure, would come up with far more. Hopefully this series of blogs has hit home and it would be marvellous if there could be a positive response through the design of a change programme that would really help the majority of British trainers.

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Prize-Money in Abundance at York and Goodwood, but Is Everything Sustainable in the Training Ranks?

My wife and I had a terrific week’s holiday up in the Dales that included a visit to our trainer, Karl Burke, and a couple of fantastic days’ racing on the Knavesmire at the York Ebor Festival. Attending this meeting has become a tradition in our household and for my money it is the best Flat racecourse in the country. It is an independent course, with inspired management and a determination to improve continually on all fronts. When you go there as an owner it is a wonderful experience and the range of bars and restaurants for racegoers at all levels can hardly be surpassed in the country. And that’s before you even consider the superb quality and variety of racing across the four days of the Festival.

For someone who has vigorously campaigned for increases in prize-money, Saturday 25th August at both York and Goodwood was an extraordinary success, at least in terms of quantum. The Ebor was worth £500k, the Gr.2 City of York Stakes £180k, the Melrose Handicap £125k, the Strensall Stakes £100k, a 1m 2f handicap £70k and even the closing apprentice handicap £70k. £1,045,000 in total. Down in Sussex, the first four races on the card were worth £375k as well: the Celebration Mile £150k, a 7f handicap £100k, the March Stakes £75k and the Prestige Stakes £50k. Congratulations to every trainer and owner who netted the benefits of this bonanza.

The Skybet Ebor is going to rise to £1m next year, as is the Cesarewich at Newmarket by 2020. This is all part of stimulating the production of stayers and encouraging them to remain in the UK. This is clearly an initiative that you can only applaud. On the other hand, when I first came into racing you would have enormous weight ranges in the big handicaps which meant that lesser owners and trainers had a better chance of winning a race such as the Ebor. This year there were amazingly four Group and five Listed winners in the field of 20, with the first and second in the race both trained by John Gosden. It is almost invevitable that with the prize-money available, the Ebor is going to become an even classier race and we’ll doubtless be seeing Pattern race winners not even able to compete in it. I wonder if we’re entering an era where the small number of what I term “Platinum” trainers and owners are not just going to be winning the Group races and harvesting the enormous stud value associated with them, but also doing the same with the big handicaps. Indeed maybe we’re already in that era.

Unfortunately the question to raise is whether the top tracks and top racedays (and not surprisingly, top trainers and owners) are receiving an overly generous percentage of the total prize-money. Obviously if I was lucky enough to win one of these prizes as an owner, I would be not only delighted, but also massively aware of the overall economic benefit and its impact on my total cost of ownership compared to winning less money at lesser tracks. As we all know, for the vast majority of owners the TCO is high, and getting higher, while the return through prize-money, although thankfully improving, is far below that in other countries. It is still a minority of owners who are lucky enough to cover at least 25% of their costs.

It was during the Ebor week that I came upon a rather sad article written by Alastair Down in the run into his retirement from the Racing Post. He was examining the Bastiman cobalt case and adopted a more humane and tolerant view of the Bastimans’ predicament, particularly that of Robin Bastiman’s hard-working and somewhat downtrodden daughter Rebecca. Alastair made the point that “at the top end there are trainers who live like maharajas and charge fees on a scale that beggars belief”. He didn’t mention any names but you’ve only to look through the top 20 and dig into their fee structures to find out what he means. However at the other end of the scale (the Bastimans), he commented that: “evidence to the disciplinary panel revealed that (Rebecca) has liquid assets of £7,000 and takes £80 per week out of the business ….. Rather more staggering was the revelation that she falls below the threshold for paying income tax. It may be naivety on my part, but it never struck me that a trainer with 30 horses could be so low on the financial ladder.”

That comment and line of thinking stopped me in my tracks, and I’m proposing to explore the issue of the financial sustainability of trainers in more detail over the next few blogs. Without mentioning the senior official in British racing who gave me the quotation – “80% of British trainers are technically insolvent” – in other words, the amount of income they obtain from their training efforts and their 10% share of prize-money is below the level of their cost base. The challenging question is how they manage to survive.

Alastair Down is almost certainly right. As a broad principle, the break-even point for training yards is unlikely to be below 30 full-fee horses in training. If a trainer is investing in gallops maintenance and improvements in the overall facilities, it can be appreciably higher than that. I’m going to try to obtain more data on the size and structure of the training ranks.

But just one data snippet to finish with. The Racing Post database shows that 533 trainers in the UK have had a Flat runner this season. Of these, 14 have won over £1m and a total of 121 over £100,000. 77% have won less than £100k and therefore their trainer percentage is less than £10,000. Agonisingly, so far this season, 162 trainers, or 31%, have won less than £5,000, so their trainer percentage is no more than £500. Not much contribution to overheads there.

If I start from the conclusion and work back into the data, I’m sure that I’ll find the whole racing edifice is based on economic unsustainability on the part of the trainer ranks and painfully low returns for the majority of owners. It probably won’t take much of a downturn in the economy for that lack of sustainability to become a major cause of concern, as it is bound to result in trainers going out of business and owners reducing or terminating their involvement. Sombre stuff ….. even if the Ebor meeting was absolutely superb.

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A Major Milestone for The Owner’s Opinion – This is Our 150th Edition

Doesn’t time fly! We set up Owners for Owners in the summer of 2012 with the intention of helping owners come together to share the costs, risks and pleasures of racehorse ownership. As well as setting up the web site, we also launched our fortnightly blog, The Owner’s Opinion. With dedication, fortitude and on occasions liberal supply of strong red wine, we’ve managed not to miss an issue and built up a worldwide readership. On occasions the blog hits have been over 30,000, so hopefully those of you who read it find that we are both topical and sufficiently interesting to secure your continued readership.

It’s also incredible to reflect that since 2012 we have personally been involved in buying well over 50 horses and indeed at the moment are managing ownership of 23 horses at all ages from foals to 7-year-olds, in sole ownership, joint ownerships, partnerships, syndicates and a racing club and there aren’t many weeks when we’re not racing. With the exception of trainers we probably have as good an insight into racecourses and the owner experience as anyone, which is why we have participated in a number of working parties over the years, not least the BHA’s Strategy for Growth Pillar on Ownership and Bloodstock.

It is also no surprise that we’ve enjoyed both the highs and the inevitable lows of ownership. I’ll never forget the thrill of watching Lord Ben Stack lead the field of the Dante into the home straight, before sadly succumbing to colic a couple of years later – a gorgeous horse and much missed. On New Year’s Day this year, it was a similar thrill to see Acey Milan galloping the field into submission in the Listed 4yo Bumper at Cheltenham, and the dream is very much alive with this youngster. And also I’ll never forget the day at York Races when Buckle Street, ridden by the irrepressible Belinda Keighley, won the Macmillan Charity Race – absolutely no prize-money was gained by this win but it was a magnificent achievement, with Belinda raising an enormous amount of money for charity. The champagne celebrations in the paddock straight afterwards and throughout the evening were heroic. Brilliant days like these are what sustain us.

While trying to convey in the blog the mix of pleasures and frustrations that come from ownership, we’ve also had a campaigning edge throughout the 150 issues. The executive teams of a number of racecourses, particularly Newbury, Cheltenham before its improvements and some of the Arc tracks, became well aware of our lobbying for dramatic improvements in the owner experience. At heart, Owners for Owners is a very democratic, grass-roots body and we’ve long felt that the privileged top end of racing receives far too much money and attention, so we’ve lobbied hard for more prize-money and better facilities on the lesser days of racing. Some of our fellow syndicate organisers have also received a number of blasts as we’ve pushed hard for proper transparency and standards in syndication, which have now been adopted. Most of our campaigning has been well received, although we’ve doubtless made an enemy or two along the way – so be it. As a great friend of mine always says, “smooth diamonds don’t cut glass”.

And I’m sure the campaigning will continue. Indeed in the last blog I started to describe the new ownership strategy for British Racing and indicated that I was going to apply pressure for far more publicity about the strategy, while ensuring that the grass-roots owners had the right level of involvement in framing it particularly through the Racehorse Syndicates Association. I duly took this up with all the top executives in the industry and have received reassurances from them that this will now happen. Rest assured that The Owner’s Opinion will be holding their feet to the fire through late Summer and Autumn as this strategy is duly developed and published ….. Something tells me however that this won’t necessarily be a smooth journey. Don’t worry, I promise to keep you all posted.

On to the next 150!

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Hats Off to the Mighty Mullins and the Punchestown Festival. Great Racing, But Are Duopolies Good For the Sport?

Well, yet another National Hunt season drew to a close last weekend. Personally I didn’t think it was one of the best we’ve experienced in the UK, marred as it was by terrible weather, the lack of the best horses running frequently against each other and in particular Messrs. Henderson and Nicholls’ domination of small field novice races, particularly the chases. The main reason though is that we’re now obviously in an era where the Irish completely dominate the sport.

The concentration of buying power in the hands of a small number of billionaire owners such as Michael O’Leary and J.P. McManus has led to the whole supply chain of top horses being routed into a small number of top yards. The virtuous circle of acquiring these horses and then harvesting the top races with them appears to have moved to an altogether new level in the last few years. There’s probably never been a period when the grass-roots owner has had less chance of acquiring a top horse. As readers of this blog know, it has forced a major rethink of how Owners for Owners purchases its NH horses, as we’ve deserted the ready-to-go but very expensive ex-point-to-pointer in favour of foals, yearlings and store horses. So far we’ve been very lucky with Acey Milan and Melekhov, but I suspect we’ll find that the prices of these youngsters will steadily climb as many owners and trainers do exactly the same as us. I’m expecting the 3yo store horse sales to be very competitive indeed this Spring / Summer.

You only have to look at the prize-money of the top Irish trainers to see what is happening. Mullins finished the season on c. €6 million of prize-money, Gordon Elliott c. €5 million, then a long way behind them Joseph O’Brien (€1.5m), Henry de Bromhead (€1.3m), Jessica Harrington (€1.3m), Noel Meade (€1.2m) then a huge gap to Charlie Byrnes in 7th place with only €400k. In effect the lesser trainers can no longer compete and it must be extremely dispiriting coming up against the Elliott and Mullins juggernauts day in, day out. It’s hardly surprising that there’s been a continuous decline in the Irish NH trainer ranks as so many throw in the towel and quit the sport. Indeed, as another graphic example, Willie Mullins started the Punchestown Festival on Tuesday €0.5m down on Gordon Elliott yet finished €800,000 ahead, which is quite extraordinary. In fact if he’d only started the season on Tuesday, with no previous winners, he’d have been 2nd in the trainer ranks five days later. This was Willie’s 11th successive season as top trainer.

Almost every day at Punchestown there were startling and head-scratching performances by Mullins. He won six of the seven races on the second day. In the Champion Novice Hurdle, all nine runners came from Mullins and Elliott (actually that’s a lie – one was from Margaret Mullins!) I was very interested in this race as it was won by Dortmund Park, who I bought two years ago but then didn’t go ahead with the purchase because he was failed by the vet. The Champion 4yo Hurdle was the third time in a season that a Gr.1 race was contested only by the two major yards. There were seven runners and the first three home were all Mullins’. Gordon Elliott had set a trainer’s record earlier in the year for the number of runners in one race when he saddled 13 in the Irish Grand National; Mullins then topped that with 15 runners in one of the races. Apparently this is a world record and in my book, a very discouraging one.

You just have to ask whether this duopoly domination is good for the sport. I think for many of the betting public it probably has no effect, as they often revel in a head-to-head in the training ranks and on the track. There was certainly a lot of media hype going into Punchestown, and the overall quality of racing at the meeting last week was superb. Wasn’t it magnificent to see the mighty machine, Faugheen, bounce back to his best? That certainly stands out as one of the season’s best performances for me. The others would be Native River in the Gold Cup; Tiger Roll in the Cross-Country and Grand National; Altior unbeaten; and the horse I most enjoy watching, Samcro, when he strolled home in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle at the new Leopardstown Festival. I do hope they keep him hurdling and go for the Champion next year.

It’s impossible to see the dominance changing soon. In the world of business the academics argue that companies compete through their networks of suppliers and partners. In racing the key networks now are the small number of the very top trainers working with their agents and breeders to ensure that the very best bloodstock, regardless of price, ends up in their yard. While this has always been the case in Flat racing, it now unfortunately seems that the same applies to National Hunt. All sports need competition and diversity. While there is obviously going to be superb competition on the racetrack, as we saw at the Festivals that now dominate our sport – Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown – there is a risk that the lesser owners and trainers become discouraged and we end up with a two-tier sport. Not surprisingly, nothing would give me greater pleasure in the new season than our young horses Acey Milan, Lord Condi, Melekhov and the as yet unnamed 4yo Presenting managed to compete in the premier league. Everything crossed for the next year.

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Book the 2019 Dublin Racing Festival into your Diary – An Antidote to Dreary Winter Racing

At the beginning of February, my wife and I and a few owners went over to Ireland. Some went direct to Dublin while others went via County Tipperary, where we called in to see a couple of our youngsters who are being brought along superbly by P.J. Colville and his wife Grainne. It was probably a foretaste of what was to come when we were sitting in Mikey Ryan’s Bar and Restaurant (interestingly, owned and renovated by John Magnier, who apparently fancied a nice place in Cashel to have his supper), savouring a pint of Guinness at 7pm, watching the Ireland vs. France rugby game on TV. When Johnny Sexton slotted in his wonderful dropped goal to grab the game back from the French, the place absolutely erupted. Never have I been kissed by so many people in such a short period of time. The dinner wasn’t bad, either.

From then on, the weekend only got better. We went up to Leopardstown for Day 2 of the superb inaugural Dublin Racing Festival. Racing is always bandying around such phrases as “Sensational Saturday”, but this time the whole meeting lived up to it in spades. I don’t know about you, but I have felt that the 2017 / 18 NH season has been something of an anti-climax, with very few stand-out performances and lots of small field races being mopped up by Messrs. Henderson and Nicholls. An indication of that is the number of horses that Buveur D’Air has actually beaten, and his average starting price of about 1/5. There used to be a time when the Saturday NH meetings really did seem to be something to savour, with heroic performances from horses and riders. Somehow we seem to have lost that sparkle, with the whole of the season having shifted to an undue focus on the Cheltenham Festival. Horses aren’t racing against each other with the frequency that they used to, and it increasingly feels as though we’re just waiting for the denouement without really having enjoyed the lead up to it.

The Irish racing authorities seem to have felt the same, with a number of their better races spread over a period of weeks. They decided to consolidate the best races into the two-day Dublin Festival, and the competition and the craic were magnificent, with so many sparkling performances: Faugheen vs. Defi Du Seuil, Min vs. Yorkhill, Samcro vs. Sharjah, Footpad vs. Petit Mouchoir and then a fairytale outcome to the Irish Gold Cup with the “horse who came back from the dead” Edwulf putting in a gallant performance, although admittedly helped by the last fence fall by Killultagh Vic, who seemed to be travelling best of all. The Leopardstown stand erupted and it must have been 50 deep around the winner’s enclosure. It’s a long time since I’ve seen so many hats being thrown up into the air. It almost felt like going back in time to the great win of Dawn Run, which still stands in my memory as the most emotional and heart-felt reception for any NH horse. The whole atmosphere at Leopardstown was captivating – real enthusiasts, there to savour the racing rather than just the alcohol …. although there was a fair bit of that consumed as well.

Lots of English fans travelled over for the meeting. It was surprising though how few English trainers and horses made the journey, which is pretty unenterprising. Indeed the British trainer who gave the meeting the greatest support was Phil Kirby, and he doesn’t have many horses. Even stranger when you consider how many horses Nicholls and Henderson took up to Musselburgh on the same day, and stranger again when you consider the prize-money. Cheltenham Festival Trials Day only managed £204,688 of prize-money whereas Day 2 at Leopardstown was a whopping great €825,000, at an average of €103,000 per race and with prize-money often down to 8th. I’ve already said to all our trainers that if we have any horses suitable for this meeting next year, we’ll definitely make it the season’s target.

One of the themes discussed by the Brits in Ireland was whether we need to strengthen the British season with a similar high-profile mid-season festival. For some time there has been a debate about whether the Kempton King George meeting could be significantly upgraded, although the refrain seems to be that “logistical challenges” (whatever they may be) preclude it. That seems a real pity.

Anyway, a couple of weeks on from Ireland we were lucky enough to have a runner – and emphatic winner – at Newbury during Betfair Super-Saturday with Acey Milan (who may now go for the Champion Bumper at Cheltenham). The sponsorship of Betfair has brought in significant money, which we were lucky enough to participate in; the total on the day was £303,102. This triggered the thought that maybe Newbury and Betfair could work together to stage a Wonderful Weekend as a stepping-stone to Cheltenham. Indeed, as we were supping celebratory Champagne in the Royal Box after Acey’s victory, I floated this to a couple of the directors of Newbury and it definitely seemed to strike a chord.

As a postscript, I can only congratulate Newbury for the huge improvements that have been made at their course. Their spanking-new Owners’ Club is one of the best facilities on any British track and the investment all round the course from car parking to pre-parade has transformed the track. They have just started the second phase of their developments and Newbury must now be the course with the greatest improvement trajectory in our sport. A huge change is taking place, not just in investment and infrastructure, but just as importantly in mind-set. For those with a long memory I wrote a couple of scathing blogs about the course following a PR disaster in December 2013 (the link is to “Nonsense at Newbury”). The Chief Executive was fired shortly afterwards, to be replaced by Julian Thick, who can be commended for all the changes that have been made. Here’s hoping that they can put on a Wonderful Weekend – or maybe even two of them – so that they replicate Leopardstown’s Champions Weekend on the Flat as well as the Dublin Festival.

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Does British Racing Really Want a Large Increase in the Number of Owners? A Frustrating Tale from “Lovely” Ludlow

The last few weeks have seen a number of fabulous horses sidelined with injuries. We’ve now lost Thistlecrack from the Gold Cup (as an aside, who at the Racing Post came up with the appalling headline, “Thistlecrocked”?) as well as Don Cossack, retired with recurrent tendon damage, Coneygree, plagued with all sorts of maladies, and of course the tragedy of Many Clouds collapsing and dying after his gallant win at Cheltenham. And this is on top of Faugheen’s stress fracture taking him out of the Champion Hurdle, Annie Power’s knee injury and Min’s bruising that will keep him out of the Arkle. Heartfelt commiserations to all these horses’ connections.

Many of our owners know exactly how they feel, so it’s always glorious when a horse who has been sidelined comes back, and on his reappearance puts in an absolutely belting run. He’s A Bully had been off for 450+ days with tendon tissue damage on one leg, but was superbly looked after by Polly Curling who did all the pre-training on a horse who only knows one way of moving, which is flat out at full gallop. Polly loved the challenge of teaching him to settle before he went back to Philip Hobbs for final training before coming out in a 3m handicap chase at Ludlow on 22nd February. Unfortunately, in the race prior to this, Richard Johnson aggravated a shoulder injury so we had a last-minute change of jockey with the talented claimer Ciaran Gethings taking the ride. Our horse galloped to the front after a couple of fences and then led the field a merry dance for the next 2½ miles, jumping for fun and clearly enjoying the whole experience of being back on the racetrack. Going into the last, it still looked as though he would win, but he was just run out of it by a very well-handicapped horse as HAB, not surprisingly, faded. It really was a superb performance though to come 2nd and all the owners were absolutely thrilled.

Nothing at all to dislike from this run. Unfortunately the rest of the owner experience at Ludlow left a huge amount to be desired. My wife and I drove to the course and, being unfamiliar with it, followed the Car Park signs on to the track, parked our car and went to the entrance that had a clear sign outside including the word “Owners”. It was rather odd when we went through to be greeted with the rather brusque challenge, “You’ve come to the wrong entrance”. Not the ideal start, particularly when you are on the inside of the course and to get to the “right” entrance would have meant getting back into the car, driving round the perimeter road and into another car park, a distance of about two miles apparently. However, the lady in charge of issuing badges relented and I handed over my PASS card. I wasn’t particularly amused when she immediately commented, “We don’t see many of these”, as readers of this blog will know that I’m having endless problems with the PASS scheme. Anyway, we obtained our badges and went on to the track for the first race.

Unfortunately, when we meet up with two friends for whom we’d arranged badges, they told us that they had been refused entry initially, though they had eventually persuaded the O&T official to admit them. Then we met up with a co-owner and her husband, who had also been denied a badge and had had to pay £11 to get in. This despite the fact that we had emailed the course the previous day, as advised to do in accordance with the latest PASS FAQs, setting out which owners were going to attend and how many badges should be allocated to each. The personnel at both O&T entrances denied ever having seen the email – which was doubtless true, but says little for the administrative systems at the racecourse. We therefore remonstrated with the O&T desk and were referred to the Office, where we eventually secured the return of our co-owner’s husband’s money. (He reinvested it e/w on He’s A Bully at 20/1 and was well pleased.)

My negotiations with racecourse management in their offices on track are becoming a fairly regular occurrence, and this is all primarily because the PASS system just does not work for partnerships, as readers of the blog are well aware.

Which brings me back to the title of the blog, does British racing really want to see a big increase in owners (and, of course, paying for the additional 1,000 horses by 2020 which is an explicit goal for the BHA in their Strategy for Growth)? My impression is that the industry most definitely wants the horses, the owners and their money, but I don’t think it has genuinely thought through the operational implications of how racecourses will accommodate new owners, particularly when they are in partnerships, syndicates and similar co-ownership structures.

A practical example illustrates this. Many Owners & Trainers’ lounges just cannot accommodate the number of owners. We have tracks such as Wincanton and Warwick that now restrict the number of badges they give out because the lounges are too small. This is a completely ridiculous situation. Even an idiot would say that the more obvious answer is to find or build a bigger lounge so that when you have attracted more owners to the course you can properly accommodate them.

Not surprisingly I will be revisiting this theme throughout the year. There is no point at all marketing and promoting ownership and then providing a poor, and I’m afraid on occasions declining, experience. I’ve just taken a shot at Ludlow and I think it’s only a matter of time before I do the same at other tracks that are failing to embrace the need for a better owner experience. And this of course is before we’ve even touched again on owner prize-money – which in Ludlow’s defence is one of their stronger features.

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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.

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Aintree, The Appeal of Festival Racing and British Racing’s Strategic Goal of Increasing Racecourse Attendance

Most of my friends and co-owners felt that this year’s Grand National meeting at Aintree was the best ever. The facilities at the racecourse are simply superb now, and the population of Liverpool embraces the meeting wholeheartedly as one long party, both on and off the track. And as for the quality of racing, with Willie Mullins bringing over so many of his hot-pots, it was outstanding. Personally the stand-outs were Cue Card’s win in the Betfred Bowl and the redemption of Paddy Brennan – and wouldn’t it be absolutely fantastic if Cue Card does go to Punchestown to take on Don Cossack; Apple’s Jade’s extraordinary performance in the 4yo Juvenile; Annie Power’s flawless jumping and Thistlecrack’s extremely impressive win in the Stayers’ Hurdle. Mouse Morris’s emotional win with Rule The World was spectacular and pub quiz bores were quick to tell you that the last maiden to win the National was at the end of the 19th Century. It is always interesting to note a horse for next year’s race and mine would be Vieux Lion Rouge, not least because a couple of years ago when one of our former horses, Lady Charisma, raced against him at Wincanton he impressed as a brave, tough stayer.

Throughout the meeting the head-on competition between Mullins and Nicholls for the Championship was a talking point and, as usual, there were a number of issues that pundits flagged up: should the Aintree meeting be extended to four days; is the Mullins dominance good or bad for racing; is it constraining betting as well as disillusioning grass-roots owners; should he even be eligible for the British trainer championship, and would it be better if that was settled on total wins rather than total prize-money; why are so many of the big bookmakers miserly in their pay-outs on the Grand National – surely in a field of 39 runners they should be paying at least down to 5th place; is the price of NH bloodstock now in bubble territory, judging by the extraordinary prices paid at the first Aintree Goffs sale, or is it just that there is now a platinum tier of mega-rich NH owners who will pay whatever it takes to buy a potential Cheltenham or Aintree Winner; and why is it that Liverpool women on Ladies’ Day seem to be totally impervious to the cold?

In many ways the Aintree meeting also highlights some of the relevant features that are central to British Racing’s strategic goal of increasing racecourse attendance from 6 million to 7 million by 2020. This goal was emphasised by Rod Street at the Newbury presentation that I attended a month or so ago. I thought his presentation was excellent, not least because it was backed by customer insight data obtained through the Racecourse Association’s study of attendance data 2011-15:

• Only 6% of racegoers ever go to more than one racecourse, which is usually their local one. In effect therefore racecourses are not in competition, so there is considerable scope for racecourse collaboration.
• There is positive awareness of racing on the part of 34 million people, even though they never attend. A marketing goal has been set to target 5 million of that group and to convert them into one million tickets. There will be a national “Come Racing” campaign.
• Ten million people go racing once, but then not again for several years.
• There is considerable churn in racecourse attendance: 27% of racegoers come back year on year, whereas 73% don’t. Over the next five years the goal is to improve the retention figure from 27% to 33%.
• Two-thirds of all racecourse attendance is driven by the social side. Racing has a huge social audience, and therefore promotion and marketing messages to do with that social context are critical. A huge plus point of this is that the social aspects of racing make the sport more resilient than other sports, and also racing appears to be very attractive to both sexes and all demographics.
• Yet, racing suffers from very low advance booking compared to other sports.

Aintree seems to be a case study of how to build and maximise brand and social loyalty: its positioning as a Liverpool festival has made it a “go-to event” on Merseyside; highly targeted marketing both retains the regular attendees and persuades the “one-off” customers to come back; it is a very attractive and safe event for groups of women to attend; and a lot of effort is put into advance booking (indeed I have already received details for 2017).

Increasingly I feel that racecourses need to collaborate together in well-defined regional groupings where they retain their individual strengths and characteristics while actively marketing the (social) advantages of going racing more regularly within that region. Yorkshire already does this, and I’m sure it needs to receive much greater marketing energy and endeavour. Linking together Aintree, Haydock and Chester as socially aspirational meetings could clearly be one example of this. It is a classic case of collaborating to grow the overall size of the pie rather than just dividing it up.

All in all it was hard to leave Aintree without being very positive for our sport, and really enthusiastic about a number of the initiatives being pursued by racecourses particularly those under the Jockey Club Racecourses banner. I really hope that the 7 million attendance target is not just attained but exceeded by 2020.

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Is York Now the Best Racecourse in the Country? It is Certainly My Favourite.

The recent Ebor festival was an outstanding success, although only a few favourites came in, and even then I studiously managed to avoid backing them. So if I was talking through my pocket I would definitely be critical. But I’m exactly the opposite as far as the Knavesmire is concerned. It really is a super track.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m more than prepared to criticise racecourses for their indifferent service and poor facilities – not just for owners but for the general racegoer as well. York, however, seems to get all the basics right, and over the last few years has made significant multi-million pound investments in facilities such as the new pre-parade ring, Champagne bars, restaurants etc. There are always lots of areas to relax, sit down, raise a few glasses of the best value Champagne on race tracks in the country, the walkways actually allow you to get around easily and all the staff are unfailingly polite and appear to be extremely well trained. Even the excellently produced and detailed racecards are free.

This year’s festival also will have pleased owners, with every race worth more than £50,000 in prize-money, and there have been significant boosts for the hugely competitive handicaps as well as the pattern races. Indeed the level of competition is such that to win at York now you need to have a horse who if not already 100+ on official ratings soon will be, after winning any of the races there.

Like all business operations, it is the quality of leadership that really counts, and Lord Grimthorpe and his team, with the hugely talented William Darby, have to be commended for what they have achieved. Indeed I have heard that the members of the board only receive payments to cover expenses, so for many of the top team it is clearly a labour of love, with all profits and surpluses ploughed back into the course in prize-money. This really does set the benchmark in quality, commitment and performance that all racecourses need to strive for.

In terms of the racing itself this year, this brought quite a bit of controversy, most of it on Day 1. Arabian Queen, in the Juddmonte International, turned over the hot Derby-winning favourite Golden Horn. It is just a pity that the winning trainer, David Elsworth, then made a complete fool of himself, throwing a major strop about not being invited to lunch and apparently feeling that his filly had been unfairly criticised. In the Great Voltigeur, Pat Cosgrave got into a barging match on Storm The Stars but under current British rules kept the race. It is now pretty clear that unless there is only a neck or a head difference in a result, the chances are that interference won’t lead to a result being overturned. Throughout the meeting a few jockeys picked up bans for over-use of the whip, and with the level of prize-money on offer it is clearly the case that some jockeys are still prepared to ignore the rules. There should be stiffer penalties to curtail this behaviour.

The two highlights for me, though, were undoubtedly the magnificent successes for “ordinary owners and ordinary trainers”. Mecca’s Angel’s win in the Nunthorpe was the first Group 1 for both jockey Paul Mulrennan and trainer Michael Dods. On the right ground she is a really game filly and was very well bought for 16,000 gns. The Prix de l’Abbaye at Longchamps is an obvious next target for her. Then in the Ebor the win by Litigant for Joe Tuite and A.A. Byrne was a mightily impressive performance bearing in mind that the horse had been off the track since April 2014. Again, cheaply bought at £18,500. The owner currently has seven horses in training, and the other six haven’t managed to win £10,000 in total between them this year. Such are the highs and lows of ownership. I used to live only a couple of miles away from Tuite’s yard, in Great Shefford near Lambourn, and doubtless if I was still based there would have heard some whispers beforehand. Sadly, all my bets went down, and indeed the final day of the meeting was just about a complete graveyard for punters. The Placepot paying £4,882 to a £1 stake says everything about the day!

Great to see the ordinary owner do well. That was in marked contrast to the results for some of the top trainers, most noticeably William Haggas, all of whose winners were owned by royalty and sheikhs. Such is the value of mega-wealthy patronage in the top yards at Headquarters.

Already looking forward to York next year, and indeed have already booked accommodation. See you there!

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.