The Ballad of Thady Quil – A Parable on Financial vs. Emotional Return on Ownership

It’s always very interesting talking to owners about what they want from the ownership experience. The more you’re involved in racing and the better you get to know owners and trainers, so the more complex the whole equation becomes around the various factors that contribute to a really positive owner experience.

At one end of the spectrum a lot of owners I know couldn’t really care less whether the horse wins or not. They just want to be on the inside track of racing, close to trainers and, most importantly, close to the absolutely superb animal that is the racehorse. They don’t mind standing in the mud on a cold winter’s day, cheering on a mediocre horse as it (slowly) makes its own way home in a Cl.5 or Cl.6 at a country track. If the horse manages to win it is a fantastic bonus for them, but it is not the economics that determine whether they enjoy owning racehorses or not. For them, the emotional return on ownership is everything.

However at the other end of the scale I know an equal number of owners for whom the financial return on ownership is extremely important. While they love the whole experience of racing and owning, they look at everything through the prism of finances and commercial return. Because we all know that the prize-money in British racing is amongst the worst in the world, this financial perspective is often more to do with stopping loss rather than making any profit. So they tend to take a very realistic and pragmatic view on horses and if the animal is unlikely to win at, say, Cl.4 or better, then it has to be moved on as soon as possible.

The more horses you own, the more you tend to move along that spectrum where the commercial return matters. Because with mediocre horses you are losing 92p in the £, you soon develop the mentality that it is better to come out of the horse rather than stay with it. The dynamic between these two very different types of owner and owner experience is probably the hardest aspect to manage when running partnerships, as in Owners for Owners.

One of our horses, Thady Quil, neatly illustrates both ends of the spectrum. He was bought at the Brightwells sale as a gorgeous prospect. We were dreaming of Cheltenham successes with this beautiful, big and sturdy son of Stowaway. We didn’t name him, but his namesake (actually spelt “Quill”) was a well-known Irish character immortalised in The Ballad of Thady Quill. Listen to it on the following link: www.youtube.com. You can even sing along to it, as we adapted the ballad for our horse. Here’s our verse:

For runnin’ and jumpin’ and winnin’ his races
And leadin’ the field up the Cheltenham hill,
In all your days’ racin’ you’ll see nothing finer
Than the great chestnut gelding, the bold Thady Quil.

What dreams we had. Unfortunately when we took him home to Martin Keighley’s and trained him, we soon realised that his wind wasn’t everything it should have been. His debut for us was at Newton Abbot on 7th May 2015, and he was pulled up – the first of six such occurrences. The renowned wind surgeon, Ben Brain, worked through three operations of increasing severity until there was nothing more that could be done. In between the disappointing episodes of pulling up, there were a number of encouraging performances, most notably at Warwick when Thady came 2nd to Paul Nicholls’ El Bandit, who is now running off OR 141. But these were rare glimpses of the potential within, and for most of the time the wind prevented our horse showing his “inner racehorse”. The mark dropped steadily until on 5th July this year at Worcester he was running off 82 in the Worcester News Handicap Chase, Class 5, 0-100.

By then, half the partnership had dropped out, the economic return on ownership having kicked in. Not enough fun for the money. Not everyone relishes Family Fun Days of summer jumping.

Thady Quil – Spot the Owner

So what does Thady do on 5th July … he wins by 12 lengths from Cry Fury, with the 3rd horse another 20 lengths back. Finally, finally, he gets his day in the sun, winning the huge purse of £3,119. Racing Post comments were along the lines of: “travelled smoothly, jumped well, drew away for a comfortable win”. Those of us close to Thady, who absolutely adore him, shot straight off the scale of the emotional return on ownership – huge pleasure, deep joy and a profound delight that our lovely horse had finally showed us a glimpse of what we always thought he was capable of.

The handicapper promptly banged him up by 15lbs, which I have to say is a complete disgrace for a horse who has had three serious wind ops and finally managed a win in a race that fell apart around him. Once again it highlighted the appalling economic return with the handicapper doing everything possible to block the luxury of a repeat. Who knows, maybe Thady will prove him right, and nothing would give me greater pleasure for the owners who elected to keep the faith. Their emotional return is something they will never forget. Go, Thady!

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2014 Prize-money – Both Good & Bad News with Arena Racing Company (ARC)

I’ve always loved Private Eye as a magazine, and have long been a follower of Lord Gnome. Much of the content has varied over the years, but as many of you will know, some themes have remained the same, with the hardy chestnuts of HP Sauce, Rotten Boroughs, Nooks and Corners, Colemanballs, Pseuds Corner …. and the immortal Glenda Slagg with her ability to argue both ways at the same time. Over the last week or two, there have been a few Glenda Slagg moments in terms of prize-money – both good and not so good.

ARC was formed from the merger of Arena Leisure and Northern Racing in 2012. They control 15 tracks and 40% of the racing calendar. The former leader of the Conservative party, Michael Howard, is chairman and Tony Kelly is the MD. The company is owned by the extremely astute Reuben brothers.

Much of the lowest grade racing in the country is under ARC’s auspices. With notable exceptions such as Doncaster, prize-money is lamentable – over 70% of the Flat races run at ARC tracks carry total prize-money of £4,000 or less. The good news though is that they have pushed up prize-money by 18% in 2013, 24% in 2014 and are now committing to a rebranding of all-weather racing, including £2m extra annual prize-money as part of an initial three-year commitment to improve the sport. 52 new Class 2 and Class 3 races are going to be included and they are launching (in conjunction with their partners Ladbrokes, Coral, 32 Red and Bookmakers.co.uk) an A/W championship series between 26th October 2013 and a new fixture on Good Friday, 18th April 2014. Horses can take part in “win and you’re in” A/W qualifiers at their Lingfield, Southwell and Wolverhampton tracks as well as at Kempton Park, owned by the Jockey Club. The Good Friday bash will have six championship categories, with each race worth £150,000, including a 7f 3yo race, 6f sprint, mile and middle distance races and a 2m marathon. It will be the richest A/W card ever staged in Europe.

Lots of people are dead against the Good Friday meeting. Traditionally there has been no racing on that day, and it is when Lambourn and Middleham hold their popular open days. Personally I thought it inevitable that this would happen, and am more than prepared to support the ARC initiative. If it raises the overall quality and prize-money throughout the winter, then that is all to the good, even though it is not a form of racing that I particularly like – not because of its being run on the all-weather so much as the dreary quality of it. I see it as just dross racing for the betting industry, but if it drives revenue and people want to support it, then why resist it? This subject will get an airing in the next blog.

So where is the bad news? Philip Freedman, Chairman of the Horseman’s Group, and Rachel Hood, President of the Racehorse Owners Association, have been working for some time, together with the authorities, on collaborative negotiations with the racecourses to secure contractual commitments linking the rapidly increasing media revenues to prize-money contribution. These negotiations have gone well ….. or at least they were doing until ARC announced, on 9th October, that they were not going to sign up to these prize-money agreements. This is a major blow, with all the key players “extremely disappointed”.

Unless there is a change of heart, this is going to put ARC at loggerheads with the industry, and may well lead to sanctions. Race fixture allocation over time can be changed so that fixtures go to the racecourses that have signed up to the contracts; bonuses such as the European Breeders’ Fund and the Racing Post Yearling Bonus Scheme can follow suit; and of course trainers and owners can vote with their feet and not support ARC courses. Collaboration has a lot going for it, but it now seems as though ARC just doesn’t want to play ball at the moment. I’m sure there will be a lot of negotiation going on behind the scenes.

Glenda Slagg would probably say: “Hats off to ARC. Can’t wait for Hunky Howard, the man in the big Chair, to put me under starter’s orders. He’s my long shot, I can tell you!! Always welcome for some late-night negotiation round at Glenda’s gaff ….. Seen the new ARC deal. What a car crash ??! Hateful Howard. Couldn’t run the Tories and can’t run a racecourse. What a loser – all bets off for me!! Send that nice John Gosden round and we’ll soon get collaboration cooking. Byeee!!”

(Get back to your blog. You’re fired. Ed.)