“Come Friendly Bombs and Drop on Kempton Park” (amongst other courses), with Apologies to Sir John Betjeman

There’s a super book by Chris Pitt entitled A Long Time Gone, which examines the history of racecourses which have closed down. If you ever enter a pub quiz on the subject it is a must-read: “Which track had the Grand Nationals during the First World War, one of which was won by Lester Piggott’s grandfather?” (Gatwick); “Which track has the record of the world’s longest continuous bar?” (Bromford Bridge, Birmingham); “Where does John McCririck want his ashes to be scattered?” (Alexandra Park); “Which track provided the turf for Ascot’s National Hunt course?” (Hurst Park). Easy, eh?

It now looks as though Kempton Park could well be added to the list. Just before I went on holiday, an announcement was made by the Jockey Club that they want to sell off 200+ acres and close down the course, raising at least £100m which together with extra injection of £400m+ over the next decade will unlock the potential of Sandown Park, build a new floodlit all-weather track at Newmarket and put substantial extra sums into prize-money.

I must admit that I didn’t give it a huge amount of thought while on holiday, with the attractions of chilled South African chardonnay and the gorgeous vistas on the Cape blotting out British racing for a while. So I was rather surprised when I got back to find out that the proposal had generated an enormous amount of invective and controversy. I should probably nail my prejudices to the mast before going any further – I have a top 10 of courses that I really dislike going to, and in alphabetical order they are Chelmsford, Ffos Las, Kempton, Lingfield, Newcastle (A/W), Plumpton, Southwell, Towcester, Wolverhampton and Worcester. I wouldn’t mind any of Sir John Betjeman’s bombs landing on these courses. The owner experience is dreadful at all of them, and with the exception of the King George VI on Boxing Day, Kempton is one of the dreariest, most soulless places that can be envisaged.

Increasingly, I think, racecourses are segmenting into three groups: the top tracks with fabulous facilities and festivals; the bottom tracks where quite frankly it doesn’t matter whether there are any customers or not, as their profitability is to do with betting and media rights; and then those in between which have a strong local following even when the experience is somewhat lacking. Kempton I would put firmly into the category where attendance doesn’t matter, even though I’m more than prepared to accept the counter-argument that substantial investment might be able to change that. But even then, if I had a choice between a souped-up Kempton or a transformed Sandown, I know where I’m going.

What have the Jockey Club actually proposed?

• Close Kempton and sell the land for housing: dispose of 230 acres with the potential for building 3,000+ homes, raising at least £100m. It is uncertain whether Spelthorne Borough Council is in favour of this, but in line with national planning policy over the next 20 years they have got to find somewhere to put 15,000+ additional dwellings. Seems an inviting proposition to me.
• Transfer the Kempton fixtures: disperse 13 prime jumps fixtures to other courses around the country, both small and large, and particularly in the north. This spreads the benefits of the meetings to other tracks and the Jockey Club have also promised further investment at these courses. The King George VI would go to Sandown. Of course it wouldn’t be the same race, but I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be a spectacular Christmas event. Surely many of the great names of the past could just as easily have won at Sandown: Arkle, Captain Christy (and I can still see so clearly in my mind’s eye his thrashing of Bula by 30 lengths in the 1975 race), Desert Orchid, Kauto Star and now Thistlecrack.
• Substantial ongoing investment: starting with a transformational rebuilding of Sandown, its facilities and track and building a new A/W course near The Links at Newmarket. The Sandown proposal sounds particularly exciting, as it is a course which has looked pretty jaded for a while. They want it to become London’s premier dual-code racecourse. In addition to the £100m+ from the sale they are going to raise and invest a further £400m (presumably from profit and / or bonds similar to that which funded the £45m Cheltenham transformation) over the next decade, with over half of that money going into owner prize-money: an increase of 54% on the previous level over 10 years and which is very welcome at £25m per annum.

What’s not to like about this? Clearly a lot, as the press / social media reaction was 99% against all of it, the arguments being: the Jockey Club remit / Royal Charter is to be a guardian of racing and protector of courses (Nicky Henderson in particular described the role of his father in setting up Racecourse Holdings Trust in the 1960s that bought Cheltenham, Market Rasen, Nottingham and Wincanton and then United Racecourses that brought in Epsom, Sandown and Kempton); National Hunt can’t afford to lose such a course, that has very reliable ground, and Sandown is too vulnerable to wet weather; Londoners need local courses; it will disadvantage trainers in the South-West and Lambourn with much further travel for the A/W; and it erodes the heritage, heart and soul of jumps racing. Phrases such as “absolute disgrace” and “cultural vandalism” have been freely bandied about. Lots of heat under lots of collars.

When I read about all of this, I wondered how many people had actually been to Kempton to experience its dubious delights. With the notable exception of the King George meeting on Boxing Day, there is no particular reason for wanting to go there. I can’t see why one wouldn’t take horses to similar tracks, such as Huntingdon and Newbury, or further afield Aintree, Doncaster, Haydock or Southwell. I accept that the ground at Sandown in the middle of the winter can be poor, but so many NH trainers are now avoiding the depths of the winter to concentrate on the two “shoulders”, so it is not quite the problem it is often made out to be. In terms of the all-weather, if you look at this strategically, where would you want courses to be – near Newmarket, Lambourn and Middleham. Having a course at Newmarket seems to me an extremely good idea, although many argue that HQ should only be about top quality horses. I don’t have the statistics but I wouldn’t mind betting there are several thousand horses who don’t fit that description and are regularly seen out on the Heath. Presumably lots of these will appear on an A/W surface.

This controversy is bound to run and run, and there will be a huge amount of negotiation and fine detail to develop. As you can tell, I’m firmly in support and I believe that Simon Bazalgette and his colleagues at the Jockey Club are to be applauded for taking a strategic perspective that I am convinced is in the best interests of racing. It will strengthen the long-term financing of the sport and be good for owners. I hope they succeed.

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Glorious Goodwood: Racing at its Absolute Best, and Broader Implications for the Racing Industry

Just back from a couple of days at Goodwood while staying in the truly beautiful South Downs National Park. Increasingly my wife and I, when we go racing, try to make it a proper trip and there is no shortage of places to stay. It amused us that both the hotel we stayed in and the restaurant where we ate were both frequented by a very well-known retired football star, now owner. He must read the same guidebooks as we do! Like us I’m sure he was raving about The Barn at Roundhurst and the excellent food at The Duke of Cumberland in Fernhurst.

The Qatar Sussex Stakes lived up to its star billing, bringing together the winners of the English, Irish and French 2000 Guineas – apparently the first time this has happened at Goodwood. The Gurkha had looked an unlucky loser in the St. James’s Palace at Royal Ascot, under one of Ryan Moore’s less impressive rides. This time however the horse was ridden much closer to the leader, Galileo Gold, and always looked as though he was going to beat him inside the final furlong. The only disappointment was that the French 2000 Guineas winner, Awtaad, failed to show his form on ground that was probably too quick. With over £1m of prize-money, it was hardly surprising that the field was top class, although one of the common themes being expressed after the race was that at the platinum level of racing the money is really just being shared out amongst a very few privileged people: the winner was owned by Derrick Smith, Mrs. J. Magnier and Michael Tabor; the second by Al Shaqab Racing; and the third, Ribchester, by Godolphin. Having said that, I doubt whether any of these care much about the actual prize-money, since the bloodstock value is what really matters these days. Great battles though between top horses such as Galileo Gold and The Gurkha are thrilling to the core racing fan and the whole racecourse was buzzing afterwards.

As always there was a fair bit of publicity about Goodwood in the national press, with interesting coverage of Charles Gordon-Lennox, Earl of March, and his passion, even obsession, with raising the total Goodwood experience year on year. Managing the 12,000 acre estate, which is completely self-funded, employing well over 600 staff full-time, and dealing with all the various commercial ventures is a huge undertaking. So he must have been delighted when last year the entire Glorious Goodwood meeting was sponsored for the first time by Qatar Racing and Equestrian Club, which is Sheikh Joaan Al-Thani’s Al Shaqab operation. They have committed to a ten-year sponsorship deal and it has already led to substantial injection of additional prize-money with around £5m on offer at this meeting. There is definitely considerable affection for the quintessentially English “Goodwood Experience”, not just amongst Qatari sheikhs but the racing public across all the levels from the privileged Richmond Enclosure (which is where my wife and I went courtesy of the ROA arrangements for their members) through to the bucolic (alcoholic?) pleasures of Trundle Hill overlooking the course, as well as the large number of picnics around the various car parks.

One aspect on which the Earl of March has been outspoken is the need for racing to “reinvent itself”, particularly through marketing, branding and strengthening its overall customer proposition. He clearly feels like many of us that racing is still not exploiting its assets and customer appeal in the way that it could do across the widest possible range of customers. This theme has also been reinforced recently by Simon Bazalgette, CEO of the Jockey Club, who is currently leading a strategic overhaul of what the Jockey Club actually stands for. At one level they are clearly a commercial success, turning over £183m last year, and that level of financial strength has enabled them to invest £415m in prize-money and improvements in facilities over the last ten years. Over 2m customers a year go through their gates, with a similar number for non-racing activities, notably pop concerts. However Mr. Bazalgette believes that the Jockey Club can raise its game hugely, and apparently is working with M&C Saatchi on exactly what the next phase of their commercial mission should be about, and how to communicate it.

It is hard not to be really optimistic and encouraged by the restlessness and strategic endeavour that Messrs. Gordon-Lennox and Bazalgette are putting into driving their racecourses forward. While I don’t think many of us were thinking like that while watching The Gurkha storm home, you cannot help but feel that the whole racing experience at the top of the sport can still be developed much further. Let’s hope that is the case and that there is a substantial trickle down in revenue and funding from it to the less exalted, day-to-day, grassroots racing.

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Reflections on Royal Ascot: Is It Now the Biggest Brand and Racing Event on the International Stage?

I lived in Windsor for 15 years and for a fair chunk of that time had an office in Ascot, so I’ve observed the “Royal Ascot experience” pretty closely over the last couple of decades. Personally I believe there has been a transformation in the event, particularly since the £220m of investment culminating in the opening of the new stand. In effect, Ascot has reinvented itself and has reached new heights. Having been lucky enough to go along to two days of this year’s Royal meeting, here are some reflections on both racing and broader issues.

Day 1: Savoured by the purists and the next best day’s racing after Champions’ Day

Ascot peaked early this year! Freddie Head’s Solow was majestic in the Queen Anne, making it 7 wins from 7, while Gleneagles confirmed his status as champion miler, adding to wins in the English and Irish 2000 Guineas. Not for the first time, Aidan O’Brien confirmed him as his “best ever miler”, adding to similar comments when both Henrythenavigator and Rock Of Gibraltar did exactly the same. It will be magnificent if these two clash in the Sussex Stakes.

Internationalism: I believe that Ascot this year was the best international meeting that has ever taken place in England, despite the non-attendance of California Chrome and the dismal flop of Able Friend. For the first time there were more winning horses trained outside England. In Wesley Ward, British racing has a superb ambassador. Indeed he is positively evangelical about our sport.

Day 2: Love him or loathe him, when Frankie Dettori does well, so does British Racing

Acapulco looked as though she wouldn’t have been out of place in the Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham – a massive filly who completely burnt off the field of 2yos in the Queen Mary. She cut an awesome presence and, in the words of Ryan Moore, “looked and rode like a 4yo”. With his win in the Prince of Wales, Free Eagle could be a potential Arc horse. Incredibly Dermot Weld had his first winner at the meeting 42 years ago. Dettori’s triumph on Osaila was his 50th winner, putting him in 4th place behind Lester Piggott (116), Pat Eddery (73) and Willie Carson (56). That is one to remember for the pub quiz! What a rejuvenation in his career.

Personalities: racing definitely needs them. I suspect there were more column inches in the daily newspapers about Dettori than about the horses that day. Although everyone appreciates Ryan Moore’s brilliance (and by the end of the fourth day, his 9th win at the meeting was a record in modern times), there is very little broader public awareness of his contribution to the sport. A challenge there for some personal re-branding?

Day 3: Embodiment of racing’s heritage with the Gold Cup

If there is one race in which I would love to have a runner, it is the Gold Cup (and like The Open, it never has a qualifying introduction – it is the Gold Cup), partly because of its heritage going back well over 200 years when the Czar donated his trophy, but far more importantly because staying warriors, in my eyes, are the real equine stars. So the captivating moment, despite its being substandard, was Trip To Paris’s win, and hopefully booking his passage to Melbourne.

Ordinary owners: the platinum tier of ownership with ultra-high net worth individuals dominating both Flat and Jumps has clearly made a huge contribution to the sport. But this can be disillusioning for the ordinary owner. On Day 1, my wife and I were standing right behind the Act D Wagg Syndicate (including jockeys’ wives such as Gillian Walsh) when their Clondaw Warrior won the Ascot Stakes, and it was marvellous to see / hear their jubilant reaction. Similarly with the La Grange Partnership that had sportingly supplemented Trip To Paris for £35,000, having been so impressed by him when he won the Chester Cup – a marvellous return on investment.

Day 4: Continuous improvement of the racing programme has been richly rewarded

It is easy to forget that 20 years ago there were only three Group 1 races at Ascot, whereas now there are eight. The racing structure has evolved, names have changed and yet the overall heritage and quality have significantly improved. None more so than this year, when Muhaarar was an impressive winner of the newly introduced Commonwealth Cup – an undoubted success and tremendous incentive for 3yo sprinters. Illuminate winning the Albany also made it an emotional day, with a winner for Richard Hannon Jr. / Richard Hughes at their last Royal Ascot together before Hughesie competes against Hannon as a trainer.

Racing as an event: over 293,000 racegoers came along over the five days to enjoy the spectacle. How many of them will attend any other meeting? Just think of the impact on the sport if the majority of them could be persuaded to attend just one more day of racing? In many ways, though, spectators are now really supporting sport as a pageant and a huge social event, rather than necessarily being interested in the sport per se. That must have massive implications for the way in which racing is promoted and the fixture list organised.

Day 5: Betting finally falls apart – normal service resumed

By the time Day 5 arrives, wallets are light and energy depleted. Alas, the Wokingham was a complete disaster, with my nap of the week Huntsman’s Close deciding it was time to become a jumper and the back-up, Watchable, only running into 5th place. One result though that I enjoyed tremendously was the win of a €12,000 purchase at Osarus in Bordeaux, Suits You, for Eoghan O’Neill in the Chesham. This is a sale where I am intending to look for a yearling in the autumn with our trainer Karl Burke, who has also bought well there.

Investment and sponsorship: the Queen’s patronage of Royal Ascot adds massive brand value and must be one of the key factors in securing the considerable sponsorship of QIPCO as the leading commercial partner with £50m committed until 2024. Indeed if you consider the six brothers behind QIPCO led by Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani, Sheikh Mohammed and the Coolmore trio of Messrs. Magnier, Tabor and Smith, then ten individuals in many ways now completely dominate the Flat. Obviously fabulous for all concerned, but not without risk.

All in all, a tremendous five days and a huge showcase for British racing. Already looking forward to June 2016!

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 and The National – Grand Result for Racing

As readers of the blog will know, I’m a huge fan of Aintree and much prefer it to Cheltenham. Alas though, in recent years I’ve been going up to the Grand National meeting with an increasingly heavy heart, in view of all the controversy surrounding the course and injuries / fatalities to horses, not helped by the stance adopted by the RSPCA (Royal Society for Permanent Criticism of Aintree).

But what a result this year, and a really fantastic outcome for our sport. When all 40 runners sailed over Becher’s, the roar from the crowd was truly heart-warming. Hats off to Aintree for all the work they’d done to maintain the going, and the softening of the fence cores has clearly helped enormously, as did the far less frenetic than usual start, with a shorter run to the first fence. Without doubt, the National is the most famous race in the world, and the only time that our sport truly takes centre stage. Lots of statistics were being bandied about, such as that half the UK population bets on the race, £150m staked, 600 million people watching worldwide, etc. This certainly goes right to the heart of racing’s brand value and the aims of Great British Racing that were covered in the last blog.

The other statistic that I welcomed was that there were no more than 20 protesters at Aintree. I really hope that the BHA and all the bodies connected with racing do everything possible now to maintain the high ground in defence of National Hunt racing, and challenge the nay-sayers who argue that in some way jumping is cruel. As the Aintree changes have shown so purposefully, we’re doing everything possible to exercise our duty of care towards the animals that we all love and admire.

When I saw Frankel thrash Excelebration in the Queen Anne at Royal Ascot, I felt that was the best horse-race that I’d ever seen, or would probably ever see. But then to be present to watch the sublime performance of Sprinter Sacre destroy Cue Card and Flemenstar in the Melling Chase was to my humble eyes even better. Stupendous.

I was also interested to see the announcement from the Jockey Club that the £45m make-over at Cheltenham will go ahead straight after the 2014 Festival meeting, with the aim of completing it for 2016. There is going to be a new grandstand complex, some spectacular tiered viewing of the parade ring and much improved crowd circulation around it. As always in racing, there were a few vested interests fighting against it, but no doubt they will be adequately compensated and it certainly looks as though this investment plan is going to go forward quickly.

So with the Aintree spectacular and an imminent huge upgrade at Cheltenham, it really looks as though National Hunt racing is going from strength to strength. Having said that, I was wondering what other changes would make a real difference. I would certainly like to see much higher prize-money at the October Cheltenham meeting and really use this to kick-start the jumps season, and hopefully not clash it with Ascot’s Champions Day. At the other end of the season I’d also love to see either Ayr and / or the Sandown mixed meeting similarly revamped so that we really have a grand finale through March and into May. And then the race planners can have a look across the season and plug some of the weaker periods with bigger races as part of a high profile National Hunt series. Anyone against, please take one step forward.