Well Done to the ROA on Passing the 8,000 Member Milestone – Do Join If You’re Not A Member

Owners for Owners have always been a big supporter of the Racehorse Owners Association and have worked closely with a number of their key executives over recent years, not least when supporting the BHA’s Pillar Team on Ownership and drives to encourage syndicates to become more transparent. Nothing at all has changed in our view about the ROA – it is absolutely vital that owners are properly represented as THE key stakeholder in racing, and this very much remains the case.

So full marks to the ROA who announced last week that they have reached their 8,000th member, which is a really significant milestone. They have doubled the membership base in the last 20 years and according to their press release there are ten times as many members now as there were in the late 1960s. Charlie Liverton, Chief Executive, emphasised that: “Owners have never had such a strong voice, and our involvement with the Horsemen’s Group and soon the Racing Authority means owners, as the single biggest investors in the sport, cannot be ignored.”

In the total scheme of things for owners, to join the ROA for a mere 63p per day (£230 per year) is an absolute bargain when you consider all the benefits provided. Don’t worry, I’m not paid to be their PR supremo, but here is a summary:

• Free racecourse admission: members with 50% or more of a horse in training, or those running syndicates, enjoy free admission to over 1,300 fixtures through the Racecourse Badge Scheme for Owners, now administered through the PASS card. If you have less than 50% ownership, you still enjoy free admission at a choice of over 800 fixtures. The value of that, if you are a regular racegoer, is huge, with the ROA estimating that it is worth £500 per year alone.
• Third party liability insurance: hopefully no-one ever has to use it, but it is a vital element to have, and annual membership of the ROA provides automatic cover for up to £10 million, worth almost £300 if you were taking out insurance on your own.
• SIS Owner Sponsorship: which allows owners to reclaim VAT on the costs of ownership. Absolutely vital for those in yards that don’t have a sponsor. The ROA estimates this is worth on average at least £4,000 in reclaimed VAT.
• 20% discount on most BHA registration fees: every little helps, as they say. On average this is worth £57 per member.
• Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder magazine: as a member you receive a free copy every month, whereas to buy it costs £55 per year.
• Car park label: which gives priority parking at racecourses on virtually all race days, which is a good saving as well.
• £2,000 weekly Owners’ Jackpot: offering members the opportunity to win bonuses on top of prize-money.
• Expert advice: the ROA is an excellent source of information to owners and, should it be necessary, can arrange legal advice as well.
• Hospitality and social events: there are regular offers for exclusive hospitality facilities as well as a wide range of social events and visits.

So it is a no-brainer really, isn’t it, to be a member?

Having said all that, I’d still like to see the ROA have a much more active role in British racing, and be increasingly assertive in arguing the case for owners at racing’s top table, particularly the owners who represent the grass roots of the sport. I still believe that across racing the top trainer / owner / breeder perspective is given too much credence, and on occasions there can still be a rather patronising approach adopted towards those who are racing primarily at Class 4 levels and below at the lesser tracks.

From a strategic perspective I believe a lot more could be done to give real visibility to the improvement gaps necessary across every element of racing and the racehorse supply chain. And, most importantly, the steps needed to address them properly. In other words I don’t just want the ROA to be a representative body; I’d like them to step up to the plate and become much more a campaigning group. The more members they have, the better, and I hope in the not too distant future we see them hit the huge milestone of 10,000 members. Well done to Charlie Liverton and his team.

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.

Creativity and Greater Liberalisation of Colours May Encourage Some Owners to Come into the Sport

Ever since we set up Owners for Owners we have differed from the vast majority, if not all, of partnerships and syndicates by not having our own colours. Our horses race in the colours of one of our owners, drawn by ballot every season. If an owner doesn’t have colours, we encourage and help them to select a set of racing silks because we genuinely believe that watching a horse race in one’s colours adds significantly to the overall owner experience. If you look on the Home Page of our web site, you’ll see photographs of recent winners, all of them in the colours of different owners.

So it was with some interest that I saw on the Racehorse Owners Association web site details of an imminent auction of six sets of racing silks that have never been seen before, and which are vibrant and multi-coloured, to say the least. You can see them on www.roa.co.uk, and you may need to put the sunglasses on beforehand! Whether you like them or not is not the issue, because it is really all about whether the racing industry can and should liberalise the rules on racing colours, thereby increasing the number of available designs and colours beyond the current restrictions.

You won’t be surprised to hear that the racing industry worldwide has a distinct, and for a lot of the time necessary, tendency towards rules and bureaucracy. In Britain they are covered by our domestic rules of racing and there are international requirements and restrictions as well. At the moment there is a limit of 25 allowable designs on the jacket, 12 on the sleeves, 10 on the cap and then an allowable two shades on each of the jacket, sleeves and cap. I haven’t calculated this but have been told that this results in 12 million combinations of colours, and putting that in context there are currently 14,000 sets of colours registered.

When I was a member of the BHA’s pillar team on ownership, as part of the strategy for growth, a business case was developed that I found very compelling and convincing. We recommended that there should be a liberalisation of racing colours, thereby increasing the number of colours, permutations and allowable designs. Not everyone, of course, would be in favour of this and we accepted that it could lead to some confusion, problems for judges, commentators, racegoers, racecard production and the TV. Aesthetically, some people wouldn’t like designs that they felt were garish and there was also the possibility that inadvertently someone’s intellectual property rights or branding could be infringed, leading to legal challenge.

Notwithstanding all the potential negatives, however, the positives appear dramatically to outweigh them. The two most important arguments in favour of greater flexibility are to enhance the overall owner experience (particularly for different types of owner) and hopefully to attract completely new kinds of owner into racing. More specifically, football clubs, universities, pubs, golf clubs, companies etc. all have logos and branding that they are proud of and to which they are emotionally committed. Indeed in some of the sporting clubs you can argue that there is almost a tribal element associated with the colours. If racing allowed the incorporation of these colours then, the argument goes, it might well be much easier to persuade them to invest in ownership of racehorses. At the top end there is a powerful case for corporate partnering and brand alignment between racing and very affluent third parties.

If the broad principle of liberalisation of colours is accepted, then racing can look for ways of maximising the opportunities for ownership as well as additional income streams. For example once you have the colours of companies of major sporting clubs on a horse, then you may be able to persuade such organisations actively to sponsor yards. A tiering of colours could create an opportunity for different levels of charging between more routine colours and premium ones. Colour auctions can be established (as in the trial at the end of this month), both of new, highly creative colours and older, dormant ones.

I really hope this is an initiative that leads to a tremendous amount of creativity, flexibility and new owners coming into the sport. As a minimum it should encourage stronger personalisation and self-expression on the part of owners, and could be one important element in maximising the overall ownership experience. Bring on the sunglasses!

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.

Greedy Managers

You may have seen the headline in the Racing Post earlier in the month, “Racing Lovers Could be Lost to the Sport by Greedy Managers”. While I didn’t come up with that title, I did write the text for the piece. After it came out, I was delighted by the large number of telephone calls I had – universal support for the sentiments expressed. So, if you missed it, here is the full article. 

“Not all is rosy with the syndicate scene, by any means. There is little or no regulation, some are badly managed, owners can easily be regarded as lambs to the slaughter, the commercial frameworks connected with ownership often lack transparency and it is easy for people to get into them without realising the open-ended commitments and costs involved. Some of them are clearly run by the syndicate managers as lifestyle businesses where the syndicate owners are in effect paying for that lifestyle. My worry is that the syndicate scene can easily be the bottom of the barrel of ownership in an industry that is prone to exploitation. I would certainly like to see syndicate owners treated with a much more positive attitude by the whole industry, rather than as easily expendable contributors to overheads. More specifically a framework / checklist is needed for syndicate owners to consider so that they know they are not going to be ripped off.

What did the syndicate horse actually cost to buy? In far too many instances the price charged to the syndicate is massively inflated to generate an easy profit for the syndicate manager. What is the term of the syndication – how long will it last and what are the precise rules for exit? Without that, it is too easy for a poor horse to be kept in training for too long and be run as a revenue stream for the syndicate manager and trainer.

How will any disagreements or potential conflicts of interest be handled? What is the appropriate annual remuneration for a syndicate manager and / or his business? In some syndicates the majority of the charges are to do with that.

What access can you get to the syndicate horse and the training yard, and is it likely to be a really enjoyable social experience? Getting into some yards is extremely difficult and syndicate members are made to feel distinctly unwelcome. Some syndicates don’t encourage visits at all.

Finally, what financial transparency will there be of all the various charges and costs associated with owning the horse?

A typical monthly fee is £275 x 12 owners. That is £3,300 per month, or £39,600 for the year – double the Racehorse Owners’ Association’s current view on the average cost of owning a horse. It can be very easy for syndicate managers to massage costs in a way that absorbs a lot of that additional payment. If they don’t provide detailed, transparent accounts then it is impossible to pinpoint exactly what happens to that money. Yes, an annual dividend may be returned to the syndicate owners but only after other charges have been taken from the balance. Please don’t read the above as the comments of a disillusioned owner – far from it. I adore racing and am expanding my involvement in it as an owner. However, since I came into ownership seven years ago, it has been a huge eye-opener to understand what I have called on my website “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” of syndicates.

Unfortunately, I know of too many instances where enthusiastic lovers of horseracing have come into syndicates, had a disappointing experience and then been lost to the sport. It would be interesting to know the statistics, not just of how many syndicate owners there are every year, but what the annual churn is – i.e. those who leave the sport never to return. It may be far higher than many would like to acknowledge.

I hope you find this perspective relevant. I for one would like to see some form of code of practice made available that would encourage the whole industry to embrace syndicate owners as a really key stakeholder that is helping to underpin racing.”

Worcester Sauce

What did you think to the boycott co-ordinated by Charlie Mann that enabled Moulin De La Croix to walk over at Worcester on 11th July? Personally I’m very much in favour of the approach adopted by the Horsemen’s Group, particularly when they are targeting courses owned by companies such as Northern and Arena who persist in putting up sub-tariff races. But I also feel sorry for the local management at Worcester. Indeed, some friends and I took a box and sponsored a memorial race there recently and they went out of their way to make it a really enjoyable occasion, and it is a decent track, even if the facilities are not the smartest.

It was definitely a source of lots of comments, with the Racing Post blog capturing a wide range of views, one being “Prize money is terrible and something needs to be done”; but another saying, “Owners are fulfilling a hobby, no more, no less, most people fund their hobby themselves, why are racehorse owners any different?” So there may be grassroots support, but also little genuine understanding about why prize money needs to increase, how it benefits trainers and their staff as well as owners, and its broader impact across the whole racing community.

I think Rachel Hood, President of the Racehorse Owners Association, strikes the right note when she argues that “an appropriate share of racing’s revenues should go into prize money”. The challenge is how to apply a proper strategy to secure that share, while working with all the major stakeholders to grow the revenue pot. Alas, I think racing tends to focus too much on dividing up that pot, rather than maximising the revenue from the global betting market, media rights, racecourse attendance and sponsorship. A theme that will doubtless be covered again in this blog.

Just to show that prize money isn’t everything, our mare, Ursula, has now been sold and will go to stud in Ireland. The day before the Worcester débâcle, she won a Class 5 at Southwell and the huge pot of £2,264. Everyone was thrilled for her and the new owner, and also for the Burke family. Ursula was well ridden by Michael Metcalfe, who is a really promising rider at Spigot Lodge and enjoying a great strike rate for them at the moment, and the horse was led up by Lucy Burke who has looked after her for most of the last five years. A superb result for everyone. Despite the shocking prize money.