Economic Sustainability of Trainers, Part 3: Does It Matter, and Should Anything Be Done About It?

In the last blog I developed a three-tier model based around trainers, owners and horses, and suggested that there was a Glamour Tier at the very top; then a Grassroots Tier, with the majority of trainers struggling to keep their heads above water; then a Graveyard Tier of trainers who are in effect dying on their feet through lack of horses, resources and finances. The key question is what percentage of the total UK trainer ranks (which I believe is somewhere between 600 and 800) are in effect technically insolvent, with income behind costs. Obviously there are quite a few trainers for whom their involvement is, in effect, a hobby interest rather than a business occupation, but it would still be very interesting to know the figure. Indeed I am pursuing that with the BHA, ROA and NTF to see if anyone has any meaningful insight into the extent and severity of the problem …. assuming that there is one, which I believe is the case.

Two races in September illustrated for me the differences that exist between the various tiers. At the St. Leger on 15th September, Kew Gardens won the race from Lah Ti Dar. No surprises who the trainers were – Aiden O’Brien (with five runners in the race), from John Gosden. Such is the glamour / platinum tier of racing with the increasing concentration of wealth, power and prestige at the very top of the sport. Hardly surprisingly, this is where the media focus the majority of their attention. I’ve always been a huge fan of the St. Leger, and it was the very first Classic that I saw when the wonderful Shergar was beaten, and then a similar defeat for Alleged. I’m not arguing against the glamorous tier, but am really trying to explore the economic reality lower down the ranks.

Another meeting that I really like is the Ayr Western Meeting which produced its first-ever Ayr Gold Cup dead heat on 22nd September between Son Of Rest from Fozzy Stack’s yard (and therefore the first winner for Ireland in this race) and Baron Bolt from Paul Cole’s. For quite a number of years I lived at the 3 furlong marker on his Woolly Down Gallops, so not surprisingly have always noted his runners. He came out with a lovely quote after the race: “How could you be more happy than to be involved in racing? There are fantastic people, it’s a great lifestyle and it has been all my life. To still be involved is fantastic.” This struck a chord with me, because I’m sure it is a sentiment expressed by every trainer in the land, even though for some of them their future involvement is almost certainly very fragile.

Although it is a subject for a future blog, it would be interesting to know whether the BHA has stress-tested racing and through that, the training profession in the event of any major financial shocks. Without being too gloomy, there are probably a number of these on the horizon, e.g. the effects of Brexit, the election of a Labour government that might take away the VAT concession for owners, an economic jolt with asset prices being corrected or natural blights such as atrocious weather or infections. I wonder how many trainers could survive such scenarios?

Some would argue that none of this matters and that some sort of trainer “Darwinism” should apply. The argument is that it is all about the economic survival of the fittest. If trainers can’t compete successfully or if they struggle to find owners and horses, then so be it. Just let them go to the wall so that other, more able and successful trainers can pick up the pieces and expand their own yards. Doubtless there are a number of trainers who probably should go under, but I don’t believe that sentiment applies to the vast majority who are incredibly hard-working, totally committed to British racing and provide much-needed rural employment at a time of major challenges in recruiting and retaining staff. Furthermore there is a local ecosystem of very close relationships between trainers, their families and the network of owners and their friends and families with whom they interact. There is often an intense loyalty and friendship in this network that binds the whole system together. If you take the focal point trainer away, then you may well find you lose the owner network, or at least reduce it.

So basically I believe that British Racing should have a focus on the economic sustainability of trainers, and that “something should be done about it”. I’ll return to potential recommendations in the fourth and final blog of this series.

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Economic Sustainability of Trainers, Part 2: How Shaky are the Foundations?

As an avid reader of the Racing Post (the online version only, as I have zero interest in football, greyhounds and fourth-rate Irish racecourses and I hate throwing away 90% of newspapers as being irrelevant), my eye was caught by two features during the week which I thought I would use as a lead into this second blog on the economic sustainability of the training profession in the UK (although it equally applies to Ireland).

The first concerns Nick Rust and the latest strategic aims for the sport. The content of the piece covered how racing should be looking to promote betting, as the sport aims to work with the betting industry. It actually wasn’t the content, though, that interested me, but learning more about what the top five strategic aims for our industry now actually are. Long ago in my consultancy career, I learnt a lot from a chief executive of a big American company who mastered the art of holding his hand up in the air and going through his five digits outlining a key strategic aim. He said, very simply, that if you have to use your other hand you have lost sight of the key goals and deliverables for your business. Very good advice, I thought, and ever since, whenever I’ve been involved with influential stakeholders, I’m always keen to see whether they can articulate those five aims. I suspect that if you asked the top hundred people in British racing what those five were, you’d come up with 100 different aims – or at least the balance and emphasis between them would vary enormously.

The second piece was a very interesting article from Richard Hughes advocating that we should be following the French model and limiting handicap rating rises to winners only. He feels that the handicapping system would be improved by radical change, which is something I’ve advocated in this blog on a number of occasions. I’ll come back to Richard’s recommendations very soon, because racing needs to acknowledge that the handicapper isn’t just there to rate horses and protect the betting public. He (or she) should also be working to retain owners in the sport and therefore strengthen the economic viability of racing. Richard’s recommendation that beaten horses shouldn’t be re-rated until they’ve won is something I completely agree with, and there’s nothing more frustrating than having your horse narrowly beaten and then re-rated so that it can’t win. It is that sort of thing that can drive owners out of the game through pure frustration.

So what is the link between these two articles? Racing needs very clear strategic goals and plans, which must genuinely impact the various tiers of racing in a way that attracts and retains owners, without whom the sport is not economically viable. As you’ll see in the diagram, I argue that the foundations of British racing are incredibly weak, from a structural and financial perspective. 80% of horses fail to cover their costs, by a huge margin; 80% of trainers are making so little money out of the sport that they are technically insolvent; and 80% of owners are surviving and sustaining themselves more with hope than any real confidence in covering their costs or even winning nice races. Having said that, I am the embodiment of the supreme optimist when it comes to racing and none of this reduces my ongoing enthusiasm and commitment for our great sport.

 

You may wonder why the only figure in that diagram is “100”. In the last blog I was looking at the amount of winnings of the top 100 trainers, and comparing that with the minimal returns for the other 450 or so trainers who have had runners on the Flat this year. In many ways the whole of our industry focuses on Tier 1 because that is the exciting, glamorous end of the sport frequented by top owners, top trainers and top horses. Let’s say that there are 100 of these in each category, and without any doubt they spend their time at the best tracks, in the best races, with the big wins and big money. Alastair Down came out with an amusing phrase that I mentioned in the last blog, that they “live like maharajas”.

The major worry is what happens when you come out of that top 100 and drop down into tier two, which I’ve called “The Grassroots”, or even worse tier three, “The Graveyard”. I haven’t made any attempt to put numbers in these two tiers, but will do so if I can obtain the information. The point I’m trying to get across is that as you drop down those three triangles, the economics of the sport become increasingly precarious, until we arrive at the bottom where there are “few wins” and “no hope”. Some would argue that none of this matters and the competitive reality of sport and business is such that the “winners will win and the losers will lose”. Personally I don’t believe that, and neither do most governments, which is why there is a concerted drive to support the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in the economy.

My challenge to the key stakeholders of our sport and their five digits is: where would the economic viability of the training profession sit within the strategic aims of British Racing, and what strategies would they deploy to strengthen the profession? My serious concern is that I don’t believe that is even on the radar screen on the sport in any meaningful fashion. I’ll develop that further in the next blog.

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Dealing with “Non-Runners” – Not a Non-Issue but Not a Nuclear One, Neither – Part 1, The Proposals

Firstly, apologies for the poor grammar of the heading. Shocking from a former Head Boy of Chester City Grammar School, where I first developed my passion for racing. Many a so-called private study afternoon was spent on the Roodee. Indeed, as a leading question into today’s blog, how many readers remember the redoubtable Pee Mai? Although they didn’t exist in the early 1970s, this horse was a veritable ATM for me. The poor horse was completely blind in his right eye, so his trainer would run him on right-handed tracks to get the weight down, then switch him on to the left-handed track of Chester. Usually starting at double-figure prices, if he had a low draw he would go round the running rail like a greyhound and was unstoppable. On the other hand, if he was drawn high it was funny how he seemed to develop a snuffle or cough on the morning of the race and was withdrawn. Or there was a convenient stone for him to step on.

That trend of non-runners at Chester, and similar tracks such as Beverley, is just one contributing factor that has disturbed the officer’s mess of British racing. In the middle of the dog-days of August, the spirit of collaboration and consensus of our sport’s tripartite structure blew up. Captain Wayman, gallant and dapper, of the BHA put forward ten proposals to curb the curse of late withdrawals. Such a reasonable chap as ever, his proposals were described as “proportional, balanced and targeted”. They had no sooner been launched than a huge barrage was fired off from Lieutenant Liverton of the ROA, decidedly hot under the collar. “The protection of the welfare of its horses and people” must come first. In waded Padre Arnold of the NTF with cautious support. Before you could blink, the tin hats were on again, with Corporal “Clot” Clare of Corals sniping between the eyes with audacious comments such as: “What business would be happy to deliver such major and costly customer dissatisfaction so frequently? Only a business that is happy to decline in popularity ….” Not to be outdone, up popped Sapper Dale Gibson of the PJA demanding that trainers were taken away and bull-whipped, and requiring owners to pay for jockeys who had lost their rides on the day. Mutineer Mottershead of the Racing Post, as usual, went right over the top (but not the trenches) and questioned whether the whole regulatory tripartite structure of the BHA should be reviewed.

Crikey! What on earth triggered this bombardment of bluster? Actually it is a pretty serious issue and not as straightforward necessarily as it looks. I’ll deal with some of the issues in Part 2 of the blog. Here is the context: since 2016, there has been an 8% rise in the number of non-runners. Three categories account for 90% of absentees after declaration time: self-certificates (from trainers), vet’s certificates, and withdrawals due to going changes. While the “vast majority of trainers operate within the spirit of the rules” (Wayman), that is clearly not always the case. In 2016 there were 8,393 non-runners equating to 8.56% of all declarations. So, to deal with this, ten proposals have been made:

1. The BHA will publish tables showing individual trainer non-runner rates from the previous 12 months at the end of each quarter.
2. Any trainer with more than 100 declarations in the period with a non-runner rate above a published threshold percentage (namely 50% above the average non-runner rate) will be suspended from using self-certificates for 12 months.
3. Any trainer above the threshold but not included within the published data (owing to having fewer than 100 declarations during the previous 12 months) would have their situation reviewed. Any such trainer may be suspended from using self-certificates if it is considered appropriate by the BHA.
4. Any horse who has been declared as a non-runner with a vet’s certificate would not be able to race on the two days following the race.
5. Stewards to hold an enquiry where a horse is scheduled to run on identical going as that on which it had been withdrawn during the previous month because of the ground. Where a pattern arises, or where it is considered circumstances warrant it, action may be taken such as preventing the horse from running.
6. The number of going-related non-runners will remain under close scrutiny, particularly when there has been only a marginal change in the going description. Should there be insufficient decline in the number of going-related non-runners, consideration will be given to the possibility of introducing a scale of going changes within the rules of racing and requiring a more significant change of going for a horse to be withdrawn, albeit with a greater degree of tolerance at the extremes of going.
7. All cases of a late change to going descriptions (i.e. once racing has started), to be recorded and reviewed by the BHA, alongside situations in which a high percentage of horses are withdrawn having already arrived on the course. Where records indicate cause for concern, the BHA Racecourse Inspectorate Team will increasingly visit the relevant racecourse prior to race meetings to assess ground conditions and compare with the Clerk’s going description.
8. BHA to encourage the ROA and PJA to agree that an owner will pay the full riding fee to the jockey of a non-runner declared after 9:00 on the day of the race. It is also proposed that this would take the place of any increase to the riding fee in 2018.
9. In cases where non-runners incur a fine, the fixed £140 fine is to be substantially increased for any such non-runners declared after 9:00 on the day of the race.
10. When considering whether to extend the 10:00 deadline for declarations under Rule F(90), any trainer who has declared more than one horse will be treated as if a maximum of one declaration has been made.

So there you have it. On the face of it, all perfectly reasonable. You’ll have to wait for the next blog to see why it has caused so much vituperation. Stretcher parties to the ready!

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The Three Keys to Successful Trainer : Owner Relationships – Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

In early days when I did a lot of management training, I used to joke that the vast majority of people believe that they are good in bed, great car drivers and excellent communicators. Occasionally people would take offence, as some probably will do about this blog, and there were always a few who, for whatever reason, immediately admitted that they were terrible at all three. My response was always the same – while I wouldn’t dare comment on the first two, I would be pretty confident that very few would pass the test of excellence in communication. I then used to set up a series of exercises involving video recording of different types of communication that pretty quickly proved that I was right.

Interestingly, if you talk to trainers about communication the distribution is always massively skewed to their perception that they are good at it. Alas, in my experience it is the same as in the management training scenario –a very small number indeed are consistently and reliably good at communicating with owners. Having made that statement, these would be my ten tests of excellence. Why not rate your own trainer(s) out of 10 and see what score they get. I’ll leave it to others to assess their prowess in other fields of activity!?!

1. Asking owners about communication. In all my years of owning horses not one trainer has ever asked me any questions whatsoever about how I would like them to communicate with me, with what frequency, through which medium and about which aspects of the horse’s development and performance. Not a good start.
2. Authenticity of communication. Any idiot can communicate, but the question is whether it is meaningful, genuine, honest and authentic. We can all sense immediately when we are not being spoken to in a truthful and timely manner. I have encountered the full range of this in my ownership career, from meaningful and helpful through to downright deceptive and pointless. Hardly surprising that none of the trainers at the negative end of the scale lasted very long.
3. Frequency of communication. If trainers bothered to talk to me about this, I’d always say that my communication preference is for regular, weekly updates, ideally on a Sunday morning, by phone or email. As I always do a Sunday update on our horses, this would help me enormously. Even now, I still have to chase some trainers. They should be the proactive ones, not me. After all, it’s my choice whether to go to or stay with them, or not.
4. Using the channels of communication. There have never been more channels, and different types of medium to select. Trainers can communicate by phone, fax, email, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, with photos, videos, audio messages etc. They can even try face-to-face. That mix of communication, and how it is best used, can only really be clear if Question 1 has been followed – “How do you want me to communicate with you?”
5. Communicating setbacks. Absolutely vital that if a horse has any setback, no matter how minor, owners know about it as soon as possible. A number of years ago a trainer even had the audacity to geld my horse without my being aware of it. Correction, I should have said “ex-trainer”!
6. Race planning and communication. Some trainers enter every race imaginable for your horse without any proper discussion. Some then do the same on selecting the race. Not only can that waste a huge amount of money, but it is extremely frustrating, particularly if you are organising partnerships or syndicates. Owners need at least an indication of the probability of a run so as to make plans to attend.
7. Raceday communication. Ideally, owners meet up with the trainer on the track before the race in a relaxed way, for a highly personalised briefing. Not easy, particularly on a busy race-day when the trainer has other runners. All too frequently you meet with your trainer while the horse is being saddled up, and if the trainer can’t attend it is with a member of staff who doesn’t really know you. That doesn’t give much time for meaningful dialogue, particularly with a large ownership group.
8. Immediate post-race communication and feedback. We all know as owners that we are dealing with disappointment probably, on average, nine races out of ten. If there is an area where trainers need to excel, it is in dealing with that disappointment. It is vital for there to be balanced communication that looks for the positives while also dealing with the negatives in a realistic and sensible manner.
9. Communication the day after a race. It is absolutely vital that the trainer or a member of their staff contact you the next day with an update on the horse, particularly if there is a possibility of a physical issue or injury. Again the ideal is a communication coming out around a fixed time, such as 10:00. That way the horse can have been examined and trotted out. Vets can also have made an assessment.
10. Communicating expectations and key decisions. The famous phrase is that success in life is expectation minus reality. If the expectations are built up too high, then everyone is doomed to failure. A difficult balance to achieve in practice. It is amazing though how many horses are potential Group winners until they step on to the track for the first time. Most trainers over-hype horses most of the time. That doesn’t help at arriving on key decisions, either to do with selection of race targets or for that matter when to move a horse on – sell, retire or rehome it.

I think that will do for the moment – there are doubtless far more than ten, not least because everyone has their own communication style and requirements. What would yours be? What would encourage you to stay with a trainer? If I was a trainer, I would certainly want to know what would discourage you, as that can quickly lead to an owner having no more horses in the future, and / or removing them to somewhere else where communication is excellent.

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 1, A Summary of the Results

When I took part in the BHA’s pillar strategy process a couple of years ago, one of the frustrations was the lack of facts and data on which to ground discussions and the formulation of important initiatives. The Racehorse Owners Association (ROA) felt exactly the same, and were determined to canvass both current and lapsed owners to find out their views, particularly in terms of what brings them into the sport, retains them and indeed drives them out of ownership. In this first blog on the subject I have done no more than list out the results from the survey. In the second part, on 1st September, I’ll do my own analysis and draw conclusions on what I think the survey actually tells us.

Encouragingly there was a good sample size, with 2,203 responses including a number of “hard to reach” owner samples such as new owners with less than two years’ ownership experience (255) and lapsed owners (203). Interesting to see that the average age of a racehorse owner is 59; the percentage of lapsed owners who cite facilities and treatment of owners at racecourses as a factor in their decision to give up ownership is 44%; the duration of ownership is longer for ROA members; the satisfaction rating of the ownership experience is higher for syndicate members than for sole owners; and the percentage of lapsed owners who would like to own horses again is 73%.

Theme 1: Owner Experience Results

1. 73% of racehorse owners started out with others.
2. Nearly one in four owners have taken a break, most due to finances or horse injury.
3. The most influential steps to ownership are speaking to a trainer or other owners.
4. New owners take more decision steps and are more likely to research online.
5. Ownership is born out of family history, keen interest in racing or attraction to the excitement.
6. New and syndicate owners think of the excitement above the expense.
7. Owners are not likely to recommend owning a racehorse to their friends.
8. Costs and prize-money are primary lapse reasons, racecourse and trainer experience crucial.
9. Three out of four lapsed owners would return to owning if the circumstances were right.
10. ROA members are much more likely to remain in ownership for longer.

Theme 2: Trainer Experience Results

1. The most influential steps to ownership are speaking to a trainer or other owners: 53% say that speaking to a trainer or visiting a yard is the key step, and for 22% it is speaking to other owners.
2. Owners want more information on costs and trainers: particularly on training fees, engagement and the owner experience, income and expenditure, and clear cost models so owners know what they are getting into.
3. Trainers are approachable but could communicate more information, more regularly.
4. Costs and prize-money are primary lapse reasons for 80% of lapsed owners; trainer experience (29%) is also crucial.

Theme 3: Racecourse Experience Results

1. The racecourse is the pinnacle of the ownership experience: the primary motivation to become an owner is the enjoyment of watching your horse run.
2. Racecourses are the shop window to ownership, not the salesmen: speaking to someone at a racecourse is not a crucial step in the decision to become a racehorse owner.
3. New owners are motivated more by the social aspects of racing: particularly with combined with the enjoyment of watching your horse run as well as the non-raceday social elements.
4. Winning is an important bonus, not the be-all and end-all: fewer than one in 12 owners believe that winning is everything.
5. Costs and prize-money are primary lapse reasons for 80% of lapsed owners; racecourse experience (44%) is also crucial.

In the second blog on the survey, the intention is to explore whether there may well be a “two factor” model working here. I know that sounds a bit jargony, but it could be that there are subtle but important differences between the factors that bring people into the sport and those that discourage them and ultimately may drive them out of the game. Thinking caps on over the next fortnight on that hypothesis.

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.

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!

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New Year’s Resolution for the Racing Industry: Bring in 1,000+ Horses and Retain More Owners

Hope everyone has enjoyed (?) the Christmas festivities and New Year’s Eve. One of our owners commented after our 2m novice chaser, Future Gilded, ran at Plumpton, “If only we could become racehorses” …. go for one 5-minute run and lose 16kg of weight, which is what Frankie did. May all your dietary resolutions be successful.

Anyway, just before Christmas I saw a number of comments that really had me thinking more seriously about resolutions. The first was in the Racing Post under the headline “Crisis mounts as flood of races hit by small fields”. David Williams of Ladbrokes painted a gloomy picture when he said, “The reasons for the small field sizes are complex, but the impact will be painfully straightforward: recreational punters will look elsewhere for their betting entertainment”, while Robin Mounsey of the BHA commented, “We’ve already stated this issue (field sizes) is our top priority. We have already announced a range of initiatives designed to address the situation, but that is not the end of it. We continue to focus on the issue and it will remain a priority for some time.” Completely agree with both of these comments – finding solutions to the problem has to be right at the heart of racing’s overall strategy and operational planning for the future.

But what to do about it? Personally I believe that there should be open acknowledgement of the problem, and then a clear decision taken by racing to resolve its central strategic dilemma. For a number of years, and particularly through the recession, there has been a steady decline in the numbers of both owners and horses in training. That has coincided with a significant increase in the number of races within the overall racing calendar, at a time when all-weather racing has grown considerably. Basically there are just not enough horses to go around and make races sufficiently competitive, with eight or more runners.

So strategically the industry either accepts a contraction so that there are fewer races (and therefore less revenue), or it pushes for an expansion in the horse population (with significant financial gains across all the stakeholders). I know what my preferred outcome would be – go for growth and expansion by making a number of fundamental changes across the whole racing spectrum. I would love to see racing’s new year resolutions aligned to that statement.

This is clearly a multi-layered and complex problem to solve, which is why another comment in December also caught my eye. It came on Twitter from John Basquill, of whom I have no knowledge. He said:

“Experience the joy of horse-ownership by paying a stranger two grand a month to phone sporadically and describe an array of equine ailments.”

Indeed, this stopped me in my tracks. If I were involved in the “training of trainers”, I’d run a workshop on all the implications of this comment, because in many ways it goes right to the heart of the problem. For too many owners, the level of engagement and return on investment just doesn’t add up. That shows in all the statistics on British racing to do with the horrible term, “owner churn rate”. Every year, hundreds if not thousands of owners leave the sport, never to return. Racing doesn’t really know why they leave, and this ought to be a prime target for research. If we want more horses we clearly need more owners but, just as importantly, to keep current owners in the sport. To do that they need genuinely to experience “the joy of horse ownership”.

And I think there is an enormous amount that can be done in racing to help them obtain that experience. I will revisit that again during the year, as the Owners for Owners new year resolution.

May you all be lucky and have a great 2015.

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.