Chairman's Blog: Let racecourses and trainers explain the numbers
How much money do racecourses make out of racing?
It is a constant theme in racing circles among trainers, owners and journalists. The target of most anger is Arena Racing Company, the most profitable racetrack operator in the country. ‘Profit’ is a word that provokes peculiar reactions in this country.
Lord Keynes referred to it, pejoratively, as dung –smelly but useful. In some left-of-centre political circles it is associated with rich capitalists that are out to crush the working person. In racing, the assumption seems to be that owners of racecourses that make a profit are bleeding the sport dry – especially if they happen to be called the Reuben Brothers.
Few question other parts of the industry that aim to make a profit (such as trainers), but we will come to that in a minute.
I find this anti-profit attitude mystifying, to say the least. Given the names of many of my horses, it is no surprise that I am pro-profit, not only as a mark of excellence but as the most important guarantee of future supply. Not-for-profit businesses are fine, but there is absolutely no guarantee they will distribute their revenues more generously to racehorse owners in the form of more prize-money, nor that their business model is sustainable in the long run.
The word most often heard at the core of this argument is ‘transparency’. This was a key objective of the short-lived Professional Racing Association (PRA). To better inform racehorse owners on which courses were treating them ‘properly’, the PRA wanted to know what percentage of racing revenue courses put back into the sport in the form of executive contribution.
I am interested in that too, but it is not how business operates the world over. Moreover, without knowing how much comparable racecourses spend on staffing, equipment, hospitality, upkeep, watering, security, facility investment and numerous other costs, we wouldn’t be able to tell if the contribution ultimately makes sense. Chelmsford’s demise is a recent example.
As it stands, no racecourse breaks the Rules of Racing with respect to prize-money levels. Prize-money complaints, therefore, should be directed to those that set minimum values – the guideline imposed on all racecourses in this country. In earlier Leader columns, I have made the case for increased minimum values to preserve the ownership ranks. It is up to me to press the case to racecourses that it is in their best selfinterest, long term, to raise their prize-money game. So far, I have failed, but I will keep trying.
That said, income is just one side of the equation – costs are important too. Most of those, outside the initial purchase of a horse, are associated with training and running in a race. But at this point the transparency calls go strangely silent.
Shouldn’t we have a league table of trainer fees and profits published in these pages so that owners know how much current connections are making and whether to shop around? Moreover, there should be much greater regular information released about our horses in training.
When I owned racehorses in Hong Kong, I could look up the HKJC website and see every piece of trackwork my pride and joy was asked to do (racing.hkjc.com/en-us/local/information/trackworksearch). For example, Ka Ying Rising (unfortunately not mine) galloped for 26.5 seconds this morning on the all-weather track at Sha Tin.
Owners of horses that miss a few days’ regular work can see that and, if not already appraised by the trainer, phone and ask what’s wrong.
Post-race vet reports, pre-race weights, sectional times and running positions in previous races are all information that is readily available. Most of that data is collected by the regulator, but trainers in this country collect much of that same information every day. It just isn’t made public. Just think how many more people might be drawn into betting on horses – and we really need to make the sport more appealing to punters – if they had access to such information.
And what about the training surface? All-weather racing is dismissed by many trainers and some pundits as being uninteresting or of low quality. But how many trainers use turf exclusively to train our horses? My guess would be none, but I’d like to know. Transparency on how often the turf gallops versus the all-weather are used in preparation for a run might be of interest to owners and punters alike.
So, here’s the point: why shouldn’t full transparency apply as much to the cost side of our equation as to the income? Perhaps one of our leading trainers can let me know.