All Change with the Final Owners’ Opinion Blog – But don’t worry, we’ll be continuing the campaigns under the Keep Owners in Racing banner from 1st January

When we set up Owners for Owners back in 2012 as a not-for-profit organisation, our goal was to encourage owners to get together to share the costs, risks and pleasures of owning racehorses. We’ve had a lot of success, not just with the racehorses on the track but also with the super friendships across the network of owners we have built up. Long may that continue! We’re currently working on a complete rebuilding of the web site, www.ownersforowners.co.uk, which we hope will be live by 1st January. The current web site will then be archived, so if you would like to download any materials from the site, please do so during December.

However, our campaigns to secure a better deal for owners will most definitely continue. We’ll be using the www.keepownersinracing.com web site for this, and as you may already have seen, we’ve been creating lots of reports, blogs and films to promote the cause. Here are two of the latest KOIR blogs.

Get Counting – Time to Register Every Owner and Properly Understand the Ownership Base

An entertaining article by Peter Scargill from the virtual Racing Post Arms suggested a tiered system of ownership for segmenting sole owners from syndicate members on the racecourse. This is a sensible suggestion but it needs to be underpinned by data otherwise it could have a negative impact on the overall level of ownership.

Surely nobody would argue that a syndicate member with 5% of one horse should enjoy the same on course privileges as a sole owner. But what about the syndicate member who owns 10% of ten horses or an individual who owns a leg in four horses?

The sensible way forward is for all the % shares of each owner to be aggregated and for the resultant data to drive a multi-tiered/ segmented ownership hierarchy. For example , Platinum for those owners with the % equivalent of five horses or more, Gold for those with 100% or more, Silver for those with 50% or more and Bronze for the rest. Racecourses could determine which level of ownership status would gain access to Owners & Trainers facilities on certain days. For instance, with an ordinary midweek meeting the racecourse might grant access to all ownership levels but a big Saturday meeting might allow just Platinum and Gold. Indeed, such status levels could increase ownership by encouraging owners to buy extra shares so they could get to the next level.

But there is a huge problem.

Racing cannot set sensible thresholds for ownership status because it doesn’t currently know what thousands of its owners actually own. There are around 35,000 owners in the UK but only 14,000 are registered and even being registered only provides a partial picture of what an owner actually contributes to the sport. I’m involved in 19 horses but am the registered owner of just one of them. The sport doesn’t know what I own in total. I’ve been a member of the ROA for five years but they haven’t a clue either. I know scores of other owners who are investing £50k+ a year in the sport yet don’t appear on it’s radar. So taking the simplistic but ultimately flawed option of tiering ownership on a sole owners v the rest approach could cause British Racing to lose large numbers of owners who invest substantially in the sport.

The answer is simple. Every owner and every share they own, no matter how small, MUST be registered. This would reassure owners that they actually own what they think they own and would enable the sport to finally understand its ownership base. Then, and only then, could it introduce a tiered ownership approach safe in the knowledge that it understands the value of every individual owner. The inevitable complaints about extra bureaucracy and administration should be ignored because the prize for the sport is so much greater.

Ownership Strategy: What Do You Think Of It So Far? – Rubbish

In the last couple of weeks I’ve spoken to almost as many journalists as I’ve had bottles of champagne to celebrate winners – and I’ve had a few! A number of articles have come out already, in the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and the Racing Post. The theme is the Ownership Strategy, or rather, its absence, despite the sudden release of almost 200 pages by the ROA on 3rd November – not a bad day to bury voluminous information, as it was the US Presidential election and two days before lockdown.

Incredibly, the biggest document, an 166-page slide pack, was produced in 2017, so why on earth it has not been publicly released before is beyond me. The Horsemen’s Group are passionate about transparency but not, apparently, when it comes to their own discussions and decision-making. This document passes the first part of my “half-life test” for British Racing decision-making, i.e. three years to produce a report, followed by three years to bury it. I could not help but quote Eric Morecambe! They are beautiful documents from a design standpoint but “rubbish” from a strategic perspective. Here’s why:

1. Is there a strategy? The greatest academic in strategy in the world is Professor Richard Rummelt of the University of Southern California. He describes most strategies as “garbage”, long “laundry lists”, “statements of desire” that avoid dealing with the small number of difficult, complex, critical issues; peppered with a huge number of “f” words – “fluff” and “flannel”. All the ROA documentation confirms is that they have not produced a strategy, despite being paid £1.2m to do so.
2. Is it an Industry-wide Ownership Strategy? No. Somewhere along the line from 2017 it has morphed into what, in effect, is an ROA membership drive. I have no problems with the ROA trying to attract more members, but they were given the task of finding out ways of retaining and attracting owners to the sport, which is not the same thing.
3. Is it capable of being implemented? As there is absolutely no plan of campaign, no road map, no targets or deliverables, no resource plan or funding model, you quickly conclude that the answer is “no”.
4. Has the so-called “strategy” been scrutinised? There’s no evidence to say that it has. While doubtless a number of individuals are aware of these documents, there has been no challenge process and therefore the ROA has not been held to account. Indeed, and going somewhat further, if you asked the board members of the ROA under oath about their sight and scrutiny of these documents, I believe that some would confirm that they weren’t aware of them until 3rd November. A board is there to hold the chairman and chief executive officer to account, and there seems to have been a serious breach of governance here.
5. Is the industry engaged? No. Indeed, if you ask anyone, in any position (outside the ROA, of course) in British Racing whether they understand or are committed to the ROA’s ownership strategy, they will come out with an identical response: “What is it? I haven’t seen it.” In a sport as territorial as racing, it takes some doing to produce such unity.
6. Has racing and the Levy Board received good value for money? It most definitely hasn’t. This is one of the most worrying features of the investment made, and one that the Keep Owners in Racing team intend to raise with the chair of the BHA, Annamarie Phelps, later in the week. If it’s not a scandal, it’s certainly a fiasco. We will also be pressing for a change of leadership of the ROA.

Back to Eric Morecambe. Did you know that his real name was Eric Bartholomew? Although he was born in Morecambe. That’s you now primed for quiz night for whenever we’re allowed back into pubs again. Do stay safe and well throughout the next lockdown period.

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.

ROA National Racehorse Owners Survey – Part 2, Identifying the Key Factors in Acquisition and Retention

My wife and I were lucky enough to be at our favourite racecourse – York – to watch the Nunthorpe, won in devastating style by Mecca’s Angel. Such a tough horse, and a superb buy at only 16,000 guineas out of Book 2 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in 2012. She is the first filly to win the Nunthorpe twice, and it was a delight to watch the turbo-chargers kick in as she scorched through the final furlong. David Metcalfe, the owner, was clearly delighted and the whole experience was everything that owners aspire to. In a rather less restrained celebration, the Here For The Craic partnership couldn’t believe their fortune when – every syndicate’s dream – Heartbreak City won the Ebor for Tony Martin. These results, and the York racecourse experience, sum up what brings owners into the game and keeps them there.

However the backdrop for the first National Racehorse Owners Survey (summarised in the blog on 15th August) is the ongoing decline in ownership since the financial crisis of 2008. Numbers coming in were lower than numbers going out in seven of the last eight years, although encouragingly there has started to be some improvement recently.  The headline messages from the survey, of over 2,200 current and lapsed owners, include:

• 73% of owners start out with others, particularly friends, family or through a syndicate.
• 53% of owners say that speaking to a trainer or visiting a yard is the most influential step in their decision to own. However, 44% of owners say that there isn’t enough information available on costs, income or prize-money in the public domain to make that decision.
• 45% of current owners would increase their number of horses in training if prize-money increased.
• 44% of lapsed owners cite facilities and treatment of owners at racecourses as a key factor in their decision to give up ownership.
• Three out of four lapsed owners would return to owning if the circumstances were right.

The survey has been analysed under three main themes of the owner, the trainer and the racecourse experience. The more the results of the survey were examined, the more it became clear to us that the factors bringing owners into the sport are not necessarily the same as those that drive them out. This is illustrated in our diagram below, while drawing on the survey’s findings.

A Dual Industry-Wide Strategy is Required: Attracting AND Retaining Owners

 

 

Doubtless the analysis and conclusions from the survey will feed into the BHA’s Strategy for Growth and all the operational planning associated with its implementation. Our recommendation is that in the light of the dual factor model outlined, there needs to be a similar dual strategy with different goals and interventions. Acquiring new owners is closely linked to marketing, PR and timely, detailed and transparent provision of information about ownership, particularly while potential owners are visiting trainers. Retaining owners is much more challenging because of the inevitable disappointments of ownership, the high relative costs and dissatisfaction with racecourse facilities. It is essential that the industry doesn’t just concentrate on marketing and PR campaigns, but addresses properly the financial and experiential factors driving unnecessarily high owner churn rates. Indeed we would argue that this should be the prime strategic imperative of the BHA’s Strategy for Growth. 

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.

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.

I am always interested to hear your views so please do leave a comment. If you can't see the comment box at the bottom of this post then navigate to the post using the right hand navigation or click here > and scroll to the bottom of the page. Look forward to hearing your views. Thanks very much for sharing them.

The Crowning of King Richard II – Reflections on Newmarket and also Nottingham

Ever since student days at Cambridge, I’ve enjoyed going up to the Rowley Mile to watch the 2,000 Guineas. Back in the early 1970s I was slumming it in the Silver Ring, followed by a few pints of Greene King Abbot Ale and the hottest curry in the Indian restaurant just down from Fitzwilliam College. Indeed in one year I can remember a friend ordering a fuming vindaloo and then promptly fainting into it. We carried on regardless. Now, I’m staying in the excellent Tuddenham Mill, swanning around in the Members and drinking fine claret. Still like a few pints of Abbot Ale though.

Only those with excellent memories will recall Mon Fils, at 50/1, beating Noble Decree by a head in 1973, trained by a much younger and slimmer Richard Hannon. I’ll never forget it because most of my student money that year had gone on Noble Decree, at odds from 33/1 down. Going into the dip he was several lengths ahead, but was pipped on the line. Many years later I mentioned this to Richard, and his gruff comment was “I needed the money more than you did, son”. True. So I was delighted this year when Richard II managed to win the Guineas with Night Of Thunder, in his first attempt at a Classic, again at generous odds of 40/1. And yet again, my selection was 2nd, after a very unsatisfactory race in which the relatively small field split into two groups. Lots of bad luck stories after the race. You just wonder why Newmarket doesn’t doll off a narrower portion of track so that such a split wouldn’t occur. Is that too obvious?

It was also encouraging that the winner had been bought for just 32,000 guineas, which with hindsight is an absolute steal for a son of Dubawi (out of a mare by Colmore’s wonder sire Galileo), who has already had 15 Group 1 winners and this was the second 2,000 Guineas winner for him after Makfi. The only bad thing about the day was the punch-up that developed between two rival gangs after the last race. Hopefully that is not the start of a trend. Then, a week later on the way up to the Dales for a walking holiday and a visit to Karl Burke’s yard at Middleham, Aran Sky ran a cracker at Nottingham for us, only beaten half a length by a useful-looking horse under an excellent ride by Graham Lee. We pulled 6 lengths clear of the field and it only looks a matter of time before our horse wins. As someone who can be pretty critical of racecourses, it is a pleasure to be able to say that Nottingham really has improved its facilities for owners, and the new lounge is top-class. Congratulations to them. Looking forward now to the two-year-olds with Karl, Jolievitesse and Lord Ben Stack, making their first appearances later in the summer.

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.