The yearling sale season is now well and truly underway with the first British sale (Doncaster) now behind us, two major US sales completed, and France's prestige Arqana sale just gone.
It isn't long ago that the most prestigious sale in the world, at Keeneland, took place in July. That has now been scrapped and the horses tagged on to the beginning of their September sale but, even so, the whole business of selling yearlings seems to take place   ridiculously early and, in Europe, it is getting earlier and earlier. I can't really understand why and, apart from the odd vendor saying that the yearlings look better with mid-summer coats, I've never heard any sort of logical explanation.
It could be that it benefits the horses to enter training as early as possible but, from an economic point of view, I cannot see the sense of holding the yearling sales before the horses-in-training sales. I'm sure that any outsider speculating about horseracing would assume that we sell our old stock (horses-in-training) before re-stocking.
I am very lucky that, for the last few years, Alan Spence has come with me to the Arqana sale in Deauville and he bought three nice yearling colts this time round. I had always imagined it to be an expensive, 'boutique', sale and had assumed there were very few bargains to be had at such a small sale. In fact, I have done very well there, especially when working with Alan.
Doncaster hasn't been such a happy hunting ground for me in recent years although the success of the sale overall is undeniable. I didn't buy anything at all this year, or last, and good horses to come to us from Doncaster don't spring easily to mind apart, of course, from the mighty Quick Ransom whom I bought there way back in 1989 for just 6,000 guineas. That was a memorable purchase as he went on to win more than 50 times his purchase price in prize money.  But it is also memorable that, having bought him in early September (the sale was later in those days), I didn't manage to sell him until the following March or April. I'm trying not to get into that position now,  but it is getting tougher and we currently own horses that have been left over in the last three years.
MY system for buying on 'spec' and reselling to owners has evolved over the years; firstly out of necessity, as I had no established customers; and, more recently, just because our customers have come to like the system and have realised that they can wait until there is a choice of horses with no obligation on their part. It clearly works against us as I am limited to what I am willing to risk personally on each purchase and, as horses are clearly becoming more difficult to sell, that figure has to be revised downwards.
I am not a good salesman and I have to admit that I find it very difficult to recommend racehorse ownership to individuals without pointing out every detail of the downside. That downside seems to be getting rapidly steeper with each drop in prize money and each rise in costs, and my sales technique probably couldn't move umbrellas in a thunderstorm.
In other industries salesmen would be employed to bring in new business and to maintain demand from existing customers and, in many cases, they would be considered to be the most valuable employees. The closest thing to salesmen in the racing industry would be the bloodstock agents and I am sure that we get fewer recommendations than other trainers because of my refusal to align myself to one or more agents. I fully recognise the worth of agents, particularly as salesmen, to trainers but I have had an antipathy to commission salesmen, whether they offer life insurance or racehorses, instilled in me from an early age. I cannot accept that a buyer's representative should be rewarded for spending more rather than for saving money. There are, I am sure, some bloodstock agents who work on a flat fee or salary, but services offered to me have, generally, been on a commission basis.
THERE are tough times ahead in British racing and, despite the prospect of lower prices, most of us are approaching the forthcoming sales with a significant degree of trepidation, but it is not all doom and gloom out there. Owners may be leaving the sport in droves and others are downsizing, but there are a number of new, and very significant, players and one or two existing owners are undergoing rapid expansions of their strings and their bands of trainers. I have to admit that I look at this and wonder why they do not come to MJR. Clearly, our statistics stack up and we pride ourselves in unparalleled consistency. If they want winners - and all owners do - then we can provide them and the best horses will be found, nurtured, and raced to maximise their potential. So, why are we bypassed despite our results?

Restrictive Practices

I am not in favour of restrictive practices in business. Well, that's not strictly true. When I was a radical student - believe it or not, much more radical than today - I was not at all in favour of Mrs. Thatcher's 'free market policy' and, when she suggested that it was 'cheaper' to close Clydeside shipyards and buy oil rigs from Japan, I thought she had completely lost her marbles or, at the very least, omitted thousands of dole payments from her calculations.
So, when I think of it, there are many instances where I am very much in favour of restrictive practices and, if I am honest, it very much depends on which side of the fence I am sitting on. But, if we are talking about British horseracing, and if whole hosts of people are still going to maintain that it is the best in the world, then I really can't  see a place for restrictive practices and I struggle to think of one specific restrictive practice of which I am in favour.
Why, for example, is the stud book closed? What do we have to fear from the introduction of unregistered stock if they can run as fast, or faster, than registered thoroughbred horses? I am not suggesting for one minute that I think it is particularly likely that many would, but, if the objective is simply to produce the best racehorse rather than to maintain some pure-breeding 'type' for show purposes, why would you wish to prevent the introduction of any, naturally occurring, fast horse?
LIKEWISE, if one of your objectives is the betterment of the breed, and both the BHA and the Levy Board claim that to be the case, why would you condone restrictive practices or,conversely, major incentives used to promote stock from certain breeders, bloodlines, or even sale companies?
I am not in favour of European Breeders’ Fund restrictions which aim to discourage the introduction of horses from outside Europe, any more than I am in favour of Breeders’ Cup restrictions which, I believe, do the same in the opposite direction. Of course, the EBF will tell us that they make a significant contribution to prize money and the Breeders’ Cup will tell us that their big day couldn't be funded in any other way but, nonetheless, it has to be said that these organisations are not exactly geared towards globalisation of thoroughbred racing or truly open competition.
I have never been in favour of the principles behind sales races, despite thoroughly enjoying winning them, and I am currently struggling to reach a conclusion on the Racing Post bonus schemes. The bonuses are great when you win them, it has certainly created interest, and it offers something positive for the vendors and agents to market but it doesn't bring any new money into the industry and I am very uncertain as to who, apart from the individuals who scoop the pools, will be the overall beneficiaries.
ABOVE all, for many years, I have queried the principles behind breeders' prizes but I recently had a conversation with breeding manager Crispin de Moubray and he gave me the first logical argument for their retention that I have heard. I have always argued that the breeders, whose aim is to sell stock to the owners, get their money at the sales and, if all available funds were pushed into prize money, owners would be encouraged to reinvest and all breeders would benefit.
Crispin argued that breeders' prizes, by rewarding the breeder directly for the racing performance of the horse, encouraged the breeding of sound, athletic, horses; built for function rather than cosmetically enhanced for their day in the sale ring. This theory appeals to me and I can see great sense in it but, unfortunately, I do not see it being widely applied in practice.
Yearlings are still subjected to surgery and other techniques to alter limb conformation with little or no consideration as to whether this is likely to enhance or detract from performance and I am becoming increasingly concerned that the much greater incidence of surgery on foals and yearlings in the US may be having a detrimental effect on their horses.
There doesn't even need to be a direct effect from the surgery as it has been shown that restricted exercise, which invariable follows surgery, can seriously impair the development of bone in young horses. Kentucky horse farms are famous for their 50-acre paddocks and the horses that ran in them as youngsters had a reputation for soundness and ability.
I now wonder just how much time some foals and yearlings spend in these paddocks and how much time is spent on box-rest or restricted exercise. Unfortunately it isn't something we can tell from examining the horse.

The Giant Awakes   

I often wonder why I spend so much time and effort worrying about the current administration and future viability of the horseracing industry.
Life would be so much simpler if I just kept my head down and got on with my own job and the likes of Paul Roy, Nic Coward and even Paul Dixon would be much happier if I kept my oars in my own boat and left them to get on with running the show.
Unfortunately, I just can't help myself and, as everyone knows, when I have an opinion, I am likely to express it, openly and regardless of whose ship I am rocking.
I am not, however, entirely alone in this. John Gosden likes to express his opinions, albeit in a rather quieter and more considered way than I do, and many of them have a striking resemblance to my own; William Haggas is equally concerned about the future of our industry and isn't afraid to say so; and now the slumbering giant has been roused and Sir Michael Stoute has been moved to comment, in Owner & Breeder magazine, that he is 'uneasy over what he feels is a lack of direction at the helm of the sport'.
HE also feels that we are 'overloaded with fixtures', that 'the whole of racing is dominated by betting' and that 'it is affecting the public's enjoyment', and he wonders 'who is leading the industry?'
See, it isn't only me. But it is interesting to note that those who are most vocal about the sport's ills are generally trainers and, in particular, trainers who are actually doing pretty well despite current trends and are among the best equipped to survive any serious downturn.
It has been suggested to me, by several people, that, when Paul Roy 'blasted certain "very senior trainers" for persistently knocking the sport' that he was referring to me. Surely not?
He is also quoted as saying that 'those people never have a good word to say about anything or anyone in the sport' and I find it very difficult to think that such comments could be directed at me or any other trainer.
For most trainers, racing is their entire life and every penny they have ever earned is invested in it. Very few have an alternative source of income. Who would invest everything they have in a sport that they don't have a good word to say about? Certainly, not me.
Racing's leadership seems to be very touchy about any criticism at present and they are playing the age-old, 'united front' card and accusing anyone who dares to question their actions of divisiveness.
They seem particularly unable to accept criticism of Racing For No Change and they have resorted to writing collective letters of support for that failing committee to the Racing Post.
They forget that many of Racing For No Change's principal critics, such as me, were willing to give up a considerable amount of time to support the research project which led to Racing For No Change and we were more than willing to embrace the principles of change in order to modernise our sport.
What I cannot accept is their abject failure to do, or even propose, anything remotely meaningful and their apparent ignorance of the sport's number one unique selling point, the horse.

A Radical Approach To Handicapping

It is all very well to say that the handicap system is flawed, as I did last month, and that it should be scrapped and replaced by a system which promotes meritocracy; but not much good if you can’t actually come up with an alternative.
Personally, I can’t imagine that it should be too difficult to improve on the current system. The difficulty would come in persuading those who currently run racing to adopt a radical approach as, frankly, nothing short of a radical approach will do. So long as the vast majority of competitors are locked into the handicap system, any tinkering around the edges will be virtually pointless. Decimal odds, large number cloths, and dancing rugby players who can cook, won’t help explain an illogical system to a disinterested audience. If you want to simplify our sport and help Joe Public come to grips with it, start by making the objective, at least within each race, for the best horse, on the day, to win. That’s how most other sports work, isn’t it? It is hardly surprising that people think our sport is complicated. The most difficult thing, by far, to understand is that the horses carry different weights. Group 1, 2, 3 and Listed make sense –and would make even more sense if they were Group 1, 2, 3 and 4 – but, after that, sense goes out the window.
I have to admit that I was surprised by the response to my comments on handicapping and that most of it was very positive. Of course, one BHA handicapper fundamentally disagreed with me and pointed out that all major racing nations have handicaps but, despite suggesting that there were better jobs that this talented team could do in the BHA, I never really expected the handicappers to support my view. That would have been like haggis voting for Burns Night.
I must confess to a lack of knowledge on how other countries run their racing as very few invite us to contest their handicaps but I do not believe that any other nation has a programme so dependent on handicap racing. Nor could I think of another sport with a similar structure. Of course, when we think of handicaps, the game of golf springs to mind and, just the other day, my son, Angus, was telling me how handicapping works in polo; but, as far as I understand it, the main purpose of handicapping in those sports is to allow amateur players of varying ability to play together for pleasure. Generally, when it comes to professional sport, the public wants to watch players of similar ability on a ‘level playing field’.
Of course, we all know that there needs to be a grading system to ensure the competitiveness of individual races or events and, just as football has divisions, or leagues, racing could have grades to ensure that horses raced against others of similar ability for appropriate prize money. What’s more, if there was no handicap rating to ‘protect’, horses from low grades could have many more opportunities, and a far greater incentive, to take a ‘pot-shot’ in some big events just as amateur football teams have a chance of a lifetime in the FA Cup. It, surely, wouldn’t require Einstein or even Admiral Rous to devise a system for placing horses in grades. We could have a subjective system, relying, as we do now, on the opinions of the BHA’s official handicappers to grade the horses after three runs; we could have a myriad of conditions, as they do in the USA; or we could have a simple system based on prize-money won which would ensure that most horses, with a minimal level of ability, had a chance of winning something, better horses climbed to a higher grade, and anyone who thought their horse’s true ability had been overlooked could have some opportunities to jump a few grades and have a go at giant killing. As with most things in life, and virtually everything in sport, it isn’t rocket science.

Trading Places

Last month I also commented on the iniquity of selling races in which racecourses - with the exception of those in Scotland, Haydock and Ripon – take 50% of any surplus above a minimum selling price.  Sally Iggulden of Beverley racecourse, having read my piece and considered the situation, wrote to me and said that she will be reviewing the conditions of selling races at Beverley. Hopefully, owners and trainers will take note of this and will support those tracks who are making the effort to put on better prize money and races with owner-friendly conditions.
Selling and claiming races can be very competitive, interesting, events and if more tracks follow the Scottish example, it is quite feasible that they could provide a viable opportunity for trading horses. It is down to owners and trainers to read the conditions and support the races which offer the best deal.

Pitiful

Once upon a time, long ago, race conditions were printed at the top of the page in racecards. Clearly, at that time, they were considered to be important and essential for those that wanted to understand, amongst other things, why the horses all carried different weights.
Then, somewhere along the line, some bright spark decided that they weren’t so important after all, that nobody was going to understand them anyway, that it was a bad idea to advertise the pitiful prize-money on offer, or that they took up too much space, and most racetracks  pushed them all onto one page at the back of their racecard.
Now Ascot has gone one stage further and decided to omit them altogether. I find this quite ironic, at a time when Racing For No Change is supposedly trying to educate people on the workings of our sport, and can only assume it is because they are ashamed of the pitiful levels of prize-money they are now offering for races restricted to high grade horses.

Tour de…..Leyburn

While on the subject of Ascot, I must commend them on the standards of catering for owners and trainers in their magnificent facility adjacent to the pre-parade ring. The (free) lunch is really excellent and I am told, although I have yet to have the opportunity to witness it myself, that afternoon tea is even better. It really is a wonderful service and I am certain that it is appreciated by owners. Ayr, who pioneered free lunches for owners, Chester and Hamilton also deserve praise and others, such as Newmarket, Haydock and Sandown, where free sandwiches are on offer, can, at least, hold their heads up  amongst the vast majority of tracks.
When Ascot was rebuilt the owners and trainers facility came in for quite a bit of criticism due to it being so far from track and the main stand and that, I have to admit, is far from ideal but I do think the facilities are good and I tend to make it my base between races. It would not, however, be anything like as enjoyable if it were not for the efficiency and friendliness of the staff, from the doormen to Yvette and the other bar staff. They do a sterling job and seem to cope, whatever the workload, but I am becoming increasingly worried about the pressure they are under. In addition to serving drinks and clearing tables, they have been given full responsibility for the telly-box (remote control) and it is their job to switch between channels when customers want to watch races at other tracks. I understand that things became quite rowdy at the last meeting and I really do not think it is fair to expect these lovely girls to intervene between those that have a runner at Newmarket and those that have £2 each-way on an outsider in the 3.30 at Lingfield. I have, therefore, decided to take matters into my own hands and start a fund to buy Ascot another telly – I believe we can get a good one for £199.99 in Dixons (no relation to Paul). Perhaps, if I haven’t reached my target, I’ll put on a charity bike ride, from Middleham to Leyburn, before the Royal meeting next year.

         

Too Much Information?

Aren’t the BHA doing a great job in their efforts to keep punters fully informed? If you ask me, it’s really quite magnificent.
They make jockeys tell them if they miss the break; if they get boxed in; if their horse isn’t ‘travelling; if it ‘lost its action’; if it had ‘no more to give’; if it ‘failed to handle the going’; if it gurgled, choked, ‘swallowed its tongue’ (whatever that means); or if there is anything else, whatsoever, which they think might have affected their chance of winning; and all this information is passed onto punters so they can make a better informed choice when it comes to trying to pick winners in future.
Trainers need to tell them if the horse lost a shoe (but they need not speculate on whether this took place before or after the line); if it finished lame; if it looked distressed; if it bled from the nose; if it got ‘struck into; if it is cut or bruised; and, again, if there is anything else which might have affected its performance. The punters are given all this information as well and, just in case the trainer is a compulsive liar, as is likely to be the case, the BHA’s own veterinary officers go and check that he/she is telling the truth.
If the horse runs better, or worse, than the bookmakers’ odds suggest was expected then the trainer is asked to explain this anomaly. Usually, regardless of what he, or she, says, the public will be told that the trainer was ‘unable to explain the improvement in form’ or was ‘unable to explain the poor performance’ and, again, this will be published for the benefit of punters.
Some say they should go further and publish the weight of horses before the race, as they do in Hong Kong, and there is a move to adopt the Australian system which requires connections to notify the public of any change of tactics.
I wonder why the punters aren’t told what the horse eats and if there is any change in quality, quantity, or basic ingredients. We could also tell them what type of shoes are worn, how often they are changed and the size of nails that are used.
Exercise is also vitally important and so, surely, punters should be notified of every gallop, and every change to the routine exercise schedule. If a horse misses a day then punters should know and, maybe, we should publish the going on gallops just as we do for tracks.
The exercise rider is a vital cog in the wheel and it seems logical, if we are giving punters all this other information, that we should tell them who rides the horse on a daily basis. That way they could determine the relative merits of all riders and not just Paul Hanagan, Ryan Moore and Frankie Dettori. And, no doubt, the Racing Post would be able to get quotes from those riders and fill even more pages.
If the rider falls off and the horse runs loose, gets frightened by a sheep, and jumps a fence, then surely punters, as much as the owner, should know. Clearly such incidents could have a major effect on performance.
On the other hand, maybe the BHA should concentrate its efforts on making sure that all connections of horses racing are incentivised, adequately, to win and never incentivised to lose. That way punters could, perhaps, rest assured that trainers are doing their best to win races and chances of winning would be based on past performance, of horses, jockeys, and trainers, as has always, in reality, been the case.

          

Unbelievably, the yearling sales season is upon us, when we have hardly started to run our current crop of two-year-olds, and I am about to attend the sales at Saratoga, New York.
Unfortunately, I cannot really see myself buying anything at this sale. It is a particularly select, small, sale and I imagine that, despite the recession, prices will be high. I have no orders at all and, having been left with unsold yearlings in each of the last three years, I am not keen to speculate so early in the year. Nonetheless, it is great to be attending a sale like this if only to drool over the animals on offer.
The next sale, for me, is Deauville later in the month and then Keeneland in September. Hopefully, by then, some of you will be thinking about next year and the prospect of having juveniles.

I have stayed over in Newmarket for four or five nights in the last month: first for the Craven meeting and then for the Guineas. On both occasions, I stayed at the hotel which I like to call the Burj al Heath Court and most nights I dined out with Mick Doyle who was there for sales and racing.
During the Craven meeting we went to a local Chinese restaurant which, as is usually the case during sales and racing, was very busy but it was particularly packed that night as three large tables were taken up by a party who were marking the retirement, and celebrating the careers, of two eminent racing journalists.
They are clearly popular chaps and, no doubt, rightly so as could be seen from the enthusiastic group of friends that had turned out to pay tribute to them but I was, nonetheless, struck by the make-up of the group. Most were, as you would expect, racing journalists themselves and, as far as I could see, all those that were not racing journalists were bookmakers or employees of bookmakers. There were no owners, no trainers, no jockeys, and no BHA officials.
There is nothing wrong in that. I am not, for a second, suggesting that this was some sort of clandestine meeting or questioning the integrity of those two journalists or any of their fellow diners; but I find it interesting. I think it confirms the view that the vast majority of racing journalists are punters, that they come to racing from that angle, and that they are far more likely to socialise with bookmakers than they are to socialise with owners, trainers or anyone from the racing industry.
Again, there is nothing wrong in that. I socialise with some bookmakers and have bookmakers who are owners but I do think that there is clearly a close association between the racing press and the betting industry. It seems to be a much closer relationship than that which exists between the racing press and the racing industry and certainly closer than that which exists between the racing industry and the bookmakers. It may be a close relationship, in some cases, because the bookmakers are major advertisers and customers of the racing press but I think, in most cases, it is because the journalists are punters and customers of the bookmakers. I think that this makes a mockery of the BHA’s rules on integrity and their beloved instructions on the distribution of ‘inside information’.
Under the rules and guidelines, as they stand, if an owner comes to my yard to visit his horses, I am not allowed to divulge any information about another owner’s horses unless that information is deemed to be ‘in the public domain’. It makes no difference whether that visitor is a bookmaker or a ‘Wee Free’ minister from the Outer Hebrides but, on the other hand, if a journalist, or someone claiming to be a journalist, calls me, as they do virtually every day, and asks about my runners, I am expected to tell all and that information will be considered to be ‘in the public domain’.
Seemingly, it hasn’t occurred to anyone at the BHA that a racing journalist is many times more likely to have accounts with bookmakers and betting exchanges than the average racehorse owner and, with the best will in the world, there is going to be a significant gap between the time when the journalist receives the information and the time when it is passed to the general public.
I have no answer to this problem and, frankly, no real concerns about journalists’ use of information received from trainers but it is yet another example of the mess we are in due to the BHA’s obsession with integrity and their belief that it all revolves around ‘inside information’. They are perpetuating the myth that successful gambling on horses depends, principally, on having knowledge of the horses’ well-being and performances on the gallops when, in fact, the most important thing, by far, is the form.

       
   

Life After Racing

Believe or not, it does often cross my mind that life would be much easier if I were to toe the party line, avoid controversy, and err on the side of political correctness.  The current election campaign reminds me that, if I wanted to be popular, I should stick rigidly to the majority view; exuberantly and publicly raise money for charity; pat passing puppies; and stop to coo at small babies in prams. But, sometimes (quite often, actually), I just can’t help myself. Some things just need to be said, however unpopular, and populist views, sometimes, need to be questioned.
I have crossed swords in the past with those that promote ex-racehorses as charity cases and I know that, when I do so again, they will assume the moral high ground and seek to portray me as an uncaring monster. Let them do so, I don’t care, I still think their motives, their methods of fundraising and, above all, their finances need to be questioned.
I recently received some, expensively produced, marketing and fundraising material from one of the ‘rehabilitation’ (their word, not mine) centres for ex-racehorses. The heading on the front page says, in large bold type, ‘Every year thousands of horses leave racing – where do they end up?’ They don’t answer, or even attempt to answer, the question. They leave it, very deliberately, hanging in the air. Let’s face it, they are aiming to suggest that the whereabouts of thousands of ex-racehorses is unknown and that a significant number of them are in danger of being neglected or are, at the very least, in need of charitable intervention. It isn’t true.
They go on, on their front page, to say ‘We breed them, we train them, we push them to their limits to provide us a sport – we owe them, either a decent life or a decent exit’. It is, quite intentionally, emotive stuff and I think it is misleading, to say the least.
I looked further and read inside that, in the nineteen years since they were formed, they have re-homed over 200 horses and ‘at any one time there are up to 30 horses on the yard’. I started to wonder what it costs to keep a horse there.
From the Charity Commission website I discovered their annual income, over the last five years, averaged £438,427 but, of course, from the limited information available, it is still difficult to establish what it has cost for each horse.
We could conclude that, if the average income had been the same for the last nineteen years and 200 horses had been re-homed then the cost of re-homing and monitoring those 200 horses has averaged £41,650. That may be unfair as, perhaps, the average income was less in the past but, without all the accounts, we cannot assume anything. There may have been some large individual donations in the past.
Alternatively, to look at the minimum possible cost per horse, we could assume that they have had maximum stocking rate throughout the last five years (they tell us they accommodate up to 30 horses) and, in that case the cost per horse per annum would be an arguably more reasonable £14,614 or £40 per day. This, however, would mean that the average horse remained there for nearly three years. At a recent ‘think tank’ on retraining of racehorses, a very eminent international eventing coach said that it took him an average of two days to convert a horse out of training to general purpose riding.
I doubt if anyone will thank me for drawing attention to these figures and I shall expect vilification from certain quarters but, if they want to re-open the debate, then surely that can only be a good thing. Let’s look again at the job they do, the requirement for it, the image of racing which they seek to portray in order to raise funds, and the personal motives behind it.

It was inevitable that some would try it. They left the dust to settle on the 48-hour declaration issue and then tried to lay the blame for the massive increase in non-runners at the door of trainers.
It is, however, surprising that, after such a short period of time, when the arguments against 48-hour declarations should still be fresh in the mind, that the media are willing to give these people the time of day and that the Racing Post should dedicate a full page to the issue.
There are a couple of inexplicable blips in the figures but, overall, a child could interpret the statistics and see the trend. Since 2005 there has been a 91% increase in non-runners from flat turf races; for all weather races the figure is 47%; and the increase in jump non-runners over the same period is a statistically insignificant, 1.2%. Is that a clear cut result or is that a clear cut result? Either you conclude that jump trainers are all angels and their counterparts on the flat, like yours truly, are lying toerags or you accept the simple fact that the only explanation for the difference is that flat races are subject to 48-hour declarations and jump races are not. End of story. If they feel that the number of non-runners is unacceptable, they have one choice and one choice only and that is to move the declaration time closer to the race.
Talk of BHA ‘sanctions’ is foolhardy, to say the least. Any such move would, in effect, constitute an effort to pressurise trainers into running horses against their better judgement and that would, most certainly, result in a welfare issue. Can they not get it into their thick skulls that trainers want to, or, more accurately, need to, have runners? Non-runners, with or without veterinary certificates, are a costly business. All non-runners have paid an entry fee and various BHA charges related to the administration of that entry; many have had racing plates fitted; some have other entries in the pipeline which will be forfeited if the self-certification system, rather than a veterinary certificate, is used; and some will have made part or all of the journey to the track with the massive costs in transport and labour that that entails. Add to this the fact that, in a stable like mine, there is often another horse standing in its box that could have contested that race and you can maybe start to see just how much we all love having non-runners.
It is staggering that the very same people who tell us that owners are benefitted by 48-hour declarations because they have more time to plan, can think that those, self-same, owners, our customers, are going to calmly accept last-minute changes of plan and all the resultant costs.
Yet again, it makes you wonder about those that are running our industry and the puppet masters who are pulling the strings.

Do you remember the case of Thebes, highlighted in the November Klarion, when he finished fourth at Newmarket only to be raised 4lbs in the handicap when the horse that finished third was raised 2lbs? Well, it has happened again.
Thebes suffered interference in that race and the jockey, Joe Fanning, and the official handicapper both believed that he should have finished closer and maybe should have won. The stewards, on the other hand, decided that, although it was the third placed horse which had made contact with Thebes, they thought the winner was to blame and they didn’t believe that the winner had improved his own position by the interference. Therefore, the placings remained unaltered and Thebes received fourth place prize money but was handicapped as if he had finished second.
Bowmaker ran for the first time on 27th October 2009 at Southwell and won. For that he was given a rating of 85. He did not race again until 10th February when we took him to a, four runner, handicap at Lingfield where he finished third of the four, beaten one and three-quarter lengths and a short head. Bowmaker was clearly hampered by the winner but the stewards have decided that the placings should remain unaltered. As I understand it, that is on the basis that the winner has not improved his position as a result of the interference but we have to wonder whether, if Bowmaker had finished second, they would have had a different view.
The handicapper is quite clear in his view. He believes that Bowmaker’s finishing position was affected by the interference and so he has decided to raise the winner by 4lbs; leave the second unchanged; raise Bowmaker by 3lbs; and drop the fourth, which finished a length and a quarter behind Bowmaker, by 4lbs.
Thus, Bowmaker gets £626 less prize money but is penalised 3lbs more. I don’t care how the handicapper tries to justify it but that cannot be right.
They will tell us that it is a handicapper’s job to try and bring all horses together in the finish of their next race and so to give all horses a, theoretical, equal chance: to do so, they will use all information available to them. That principle, in itself, is debateable, as they are not supposed to be tipsters; they are not expected, as an organisation like Timeform may be, to give an opinion on the likely outcome of the next race based on ‘what if’s’ and ‘might have been’s’. If we were to take their right to incorporate subjective opinion into their assessment of a race to its ultimate conclusion then they would need to look at interference at all stages of the race and allow for every hard luck story.
It has to be wrong and, regardless of their arithmetical system which they wish to apply to handicapping, there needs to be a ruling to prevent a horse being penalised to a greater extent than one which finished in front of it and received more prize money.

I have recently been querying the whole basis of handicapping on the all-weather. Inevitably, with prize money dropping, the fixture list expanding, and all-weather racing becoming less competitive, the ratings allocated to winners on the all-weather have a tendency to creep up. This is especially true in races at Southwell where the deep surface results in extended winning distances as we see on soft or heavy going.
There is a system in place to allow handicappers to allocate different ratings to horses for all-weather racing and turf but there seems to be a great reluctance to use this and, in any event, it is of no help to the horse which gains its handicap rating on the all-weather and then has to carry it across to turf.
The problem is further compounded by the abysmal, and declining, levels of prize money on the all-weather. A horse, like Shernando, can win a Class 5 maiden at Southwell on his second start of his life, collecting £2,456, and earn a rating of 90 for his trouble. That will be all well and good if he is a seriously good horse and can race to above that level when transferred to turf but, if he falls short of the mark, he could easily find himself remaining rated way above average but earning no prize money for his owners. The handicappers will tell us that it isn’t their job to handicap horses based on their earnings but there is an argument that says the uncompetitive nature of all-weather races, where derisory prize money is offered, needs to be taken into account.
I am increasingly getting the impression that they wish to discourage owners and trainers from running anything but the worst horses at all-weather tracks during the winter: not only do they offer lower and lower levels of prize money but, if the horses show above average ability, they will be handicapped in such a way as to put their future on turf in jeopardy.
Perhaps, we need to look at a completely new model for handicapping or grading horses in Britain. A glance at the Dubai Carnival shows that money talks and that truly competitive races are those in which high quality animals are drawn to race against their peers. In Britain we are getting further and further from that situation. If the Racing For No Change board were worth their salt, they would be looking at major issues like the handicap system in Britain rather than trying to tinker with trivialities in our sport. If it weren’t so serious it would be laughable that they should consider it necessary to decimalise odds while turning a blind eye to the fact that, in the vast majority of our races, the participants are carrying different weights and that the relative weights are altered weekly dependent on the opinion of a handful of individuals. It’s as clear as mud.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the British Horseracing Conference. I had countless questions that I would like to have asked.
Top of my agenda would have been to try and clarify points on the cost of administration in racing. In the January Klarion I queried Nic Coward’s comment that the BHA would only pay bonuses to those that had a ‘risk element’ to their jobs. I haven’t received any clarification on that and I am none the wiser. It still puzzles me.
Howard Wright did attend the conference but it seems that he is also puzzled about the finances although he did establish (I’m not sure where from) that Nic Coward received £315,000 in 2008; Paul Roy received £100,000 in the same period; and John Bridgeman and Ben Gunn received £60,000 and £35,000, respectively, for their part time roles.
There is no mention of bonuses, that I can see, in the BHA’s annual report or in Howard Wright’s report but Howard does refer to a quote (again, I’m not sure where from) which states that ‘this has led us to adopt a more risk-based, flexible approach to many of our roles’. Is this the ‘risk’ that Nic Coward was referring to, on the basis of which bonuses would be paid? I’d like to know.
I accept that we (I use the word ‘we’ deliberately as owners, trainers and racing professionals are the shareholders in the BHA) need to pay well if we expect to get decent people but we need to be assured that they are earning their corn and giving us the service we require. I, for one, do not feel anything like assured at present.

Oh ye of little faith! Go on; admit it, how many of you said that Meydan wouldn’t be ready for the opening night?
OK, so it isn’t quite finished but the inaugural meeting was a roaring success and it was very clear to all present that Sheikh Mohammed is going to deliver, on time, yet again, just as he said he would. It is impossible for anyone, other than the man himself, to say whether Meydan is living up to Sheikh Mohammed’s personal vision of the world’s greatest racecourse but I’m certain that anyone else who sees it will be absolutely staggered. It was one thing to see the fabulous, animated, preview two years ago but, despite the detail that was covered in the films, artists’ impressions, and models, the reality is something more.
For well over a year now, I have listened to countless people saying that it couldn’t or wouldn’t be done and we have all seen the articles in the British press which have claimed that Dubai is in a perilous financial state. So it was with some trepidation that I set out for Dubai at the end of January, on my first visit since last year’s World Cup: just hoping that the doom and gloom merchants were wrong.
It would be naive to think that Dubai, with its phenomenal rate of growth and plethora of building projects, could escape a world recession, especially as property has been hit as hard as any commodity, but I had always assumed that the media were blowing things out of proportion. It was evident last year that the rate of new build had slowed dramatically in Dubai but that was surely inevitable as world-wide demand for property slumped. I would assume that there is no longer any urgency to build more luxury housing or office space in Dubai, while the demand from other recession-hit countries is on the ebb, but Meydan has shown us that the ability to meet a target on a flagship project still remains as strong as ever.
To a visitor like me there was no obvious sign of recession in Dubai. As far as I could see it is business as usual in the hotels, restaurants and souks; and the airport, like so many other integral parts of Sheikh Mohammed’s long-term plan, continues to astound me. We arrived at about 1am and departed at 7am but, from inside the building, it was difficult to tell the difference. It seems to be busy at all hours of the day and night but, unlike its equivalent in Britain, the throughput is most evident in the numbers of people moving around or in the shops rather than there being huge queues and bottlenecks at immigration and security.
If you haven’t booked yet for the 2010 Dubai World Cup, I suggest you get on to it straight away. For anyone with an interest in horseracing, the place to be on 27th March is Meydan.

Elsewhere in this issue, John Scanlon tells us of the sad death of Yavana’s Pace and his tribute brings back some great memories for me.
As John says, Yavana’s Pace arrived at Kingsley House in 1998 and he is also quite right that the brief was to ‘get some black type for the mare’. That instruction came from the late Mr. Terrence Keaney and I am sure many of you will appreciate that I had heard it all before. Frankly, I thought the man, who I had never met, must be mad: after all, we were talking about a six-year-old gelding rated 83.
We now know that Terrence Keaney wasn’t so daft after all and that getting black-type was to be a walk in the park for Yavana’s Pace (he achieved that on 25 separate occasions) but, sadly, he didn’t get the chance to say ‘I told you so’. Terrence died before Yavana’s Pace ever ran for the trainer that he entrusted with the job of proving that his horse had infinitely more ability than it had shown in Ireland.
John, Hayley and Keith all describe Yavana as ‘quirky’ but that must be the understatement of the year. Hayley developed the knack of getting him onto the gallops every morning, albeit that he had to be kept away from any other horse, and Keith, as far as I can remember, managed to get him to the start without incident whenever he rode him; but other riders weren’t so lucky. Many a top jockey parted company with Yavana’s Pace on the racecourse before the start, including Michael Hills, Darryl Holland, John Carroll and Olivier Peslier and his antics became such a ritual that John Keaney eventually concluded that the horse was better for a bit of a gallop round, loose, before a race. We couldn’t deliberately set him free, although I think John did suggest it once, but he often told the jockeys that, in the event that they managed to stay on him, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let him take off in the wrong direction and go the long way round to the start. Despite this, I said in my Racing Post column in August 2002 that ‘no horse has given me so much pleasure and so little pain as Yavana’s Pace. He has been a joy to train.’
The pleasure was in large part due to the attitude of the owner, or should I say the owner’s son, who managed the horse on behalf of his mother after his father died. Defeats were something we took on the chin and any despondency that we felt lasted no longer than it took us to walk to the bar where we would immediately begin planning the next race. That is the way to enjoy a good horse.
I am often reminded of John Keaney’s attitude to Yavana’s Pace when I sit in our lounge and look at a painting on the wall which depicts the finish of the Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot in 2000. Now, it has to be said that many owners object to having their horse race against another from the same stable, although I think they are wrong in this because I firmly believe that, if a trainer is trying to do the best for every individual owner, then he must run the horse where it has its best chance regardless of any preference he may have for another horse. However, I am, nonetheless, very aware that some owners don’t like it. That year we had Fruits of Love aiming to win the Hardwicke for the second successive year but I still believed that Yavana’s Pace deserved to run. John wasn’t convinced, as the ground was considerably firmer than  that which we would normally have favoured for the horse, but I persuaded him to have a go and Darryl Holland was given the ride.
Yavana’s Pace, at that stage was believed to be best when held up for a late run in a fast run race, and the same applied to Fruits of Love. I didn’t then, any more than now, believe in hampering my jockeys with instructions but it was still a surprise to me when Darryl pushed Yavana’s Pace to the front from the stalls and Olivier Peslier tucked Fruits of Love in behind him. I could already imagine that I would be accused of using Yavana’s Pace as a pacemaker and my fears only worsened when John, who was standing on my left and screaming for his horse to slog it out up the home straight, was drowned out by Deirdre who was shouting for Fruits of Love. As Fruits of Love passed the post a length and a half clear of Yavana, I turned to see John Keaney spinning Deirdre in his arms. It is hard to imagine how he might have behaved if he won the race.
Later that year I saw a print of a painting showing both horses battling for the lead and I asked if we could reproduce it as a Christmas card. We were allowed to do so on condition that we gave credit to the artist on the card, which we did, and they were sent to all our friends at the end of that year. A few weeks later I answered a knock at the door to find the gallery owner with the original oil which had been bought for us by John Keaney. It has pride of place on our wall and its story has been told on a regular basis since.
John Scanlon points out that, at a time when flat racing is supposedly lacking characters who race year after year at the top level like jumpers, Yavana’s Pace should have been the media’s dream. But I never felt that he was given the credit or the coverage he deserved and, when he won his Group 1 at the age of ten, it was suggested by some that it must have been a substandard race. This was despite the fact that Yavana’s Pace was placed in eight other Group 1 contests. They can’t all have been poor races.
In his remarkable career he ran 74 times, won 16 races and was placed on 41 occasions altogether. He collected more than £740,000 in prize money.
 

Happy New Year. Let’s hope it’s a good one for everyone who gets the Kingsley Klarion and for the racing industry in general. We need something to lift us from the doom and gloom.
For MJR, 2009 was a record breaking year in many ways and I think, despite the perilous state of the economy and a seemingly declining racing industry, we are going into the New Year with a confidence that has been built through those sixteen years of consecutive centuries of winners.
2009 was a remarkable year for us in that every single month, from January to December, was a good one. In every other year since I began training there has been, at least, a month or two when things went very badly indeed and, at times, horses finishing last were outnumbering winners. We are proud of our run of consecutive centuries because we believe it shows unparalleled consistency and that we always find a way to ride those storms and get the team back on track. But, in 2009, we had no such problems and the good run of form continued from beginning to end.
When things are going badly, we leave no stone unturned in our efforts to get to the root of the problem but, unfortunately, we seldom, if ever, find a single factor which we can hang our hat on. Horse health is, of course, the biggest issue and a run of poor form usually coincides with a period when the horses aren’t looking their best. However, contrary to common belief, the horses are rarely running a temperature, coughing and showing specific clinical signs of disease during these periods.
In 2009 we had the usual bouts of coughing. We had snotty noses, ringworm, set-fast, and all the other diseases which, together with injuries, stop the individual horse from running or winning; but, despite this, the team as a whole thrived and looked well.
We are now asking ourselves why. What, if anything, did we do differently in 2009?
One of the biggest changes was the move to new, private, gallops at Park Farm and, as all our horses trained, exclusively, on those new gallops from July onwards, we can rest assured that they didn’t do any harm. I’m not, however, going to stick my neck out and say that those gallops improved the form of our horses.
I find it hard to imagine that it was a change of exercise regime that caused the horses to hold their condition so well and I suspect that we may, unwittingly, have been feeding them better and/or more consistently through the year. Maybe our home-grown haylage was better or more consistent or maybe, following the morphine contamination episode in 2008, Baileys Horsefeeds raised their, already high, quality controls. I certainly had no complaints about feed quality from managers during 2009 and I think this may have been a factor.
We, probably, will never know exactly why 2009 was such an exceptional year but you can rest assured that we will be trying to repeat it, or better it, in the year to come.
Our yard managers don’t set their targets for the coming year until after the end of January because, at that stage, we set up our quarantine barn and greatly reduce movements between yards but I can tell you now that I have set them an overall prize money target of £2,500,000 for 2010. That is, of course, considerably less than we won in 2009 but we cannot count on sales races this year and, with prize money dropping considerably, I think it is an ambitious target.   

       

Moving In The Right Direction

We must give a big pat on the back to the BHA for two very sensible changes they have made recently.
After two seasons of chaos and confusion the British Flat Trainers’ championship is reverting to a twelve month season. It will start and end in November and I dearly hope that that will not, in itself, cause any confusion but, at least, all races will be included regardless of where or when they are run. It was quite ludicrous to have a situation whereby a seller, run at Southwell in June, would count for the Owners’ and Trainers’ Championships, and a Listed race, run at Kempton in March, would not.
If they ever wanted to separate all-weather racing from turf racing then I might support it if they were run as two completely separate codes but, so long as there is no distinction in terms of penalties and conditions, then they are one and the same and we should not have two different championships.
Howard Wright, in the Racing Post, pointed out, probably correctly, that I have been ‘the most vocal supporter of a calendar year championship’ (am I not the most vocal trainer on many subjects?) but I got a faint impression that he was suggesting there was an element of self-interest behind this. He also said that I had ‘trained 165 winners in the “official” turf season but claimed more than 200 in 2009’. Surely ‘claimed’ is a strange word to use. I didn’t ‘claim’ them, I won them and I won them in 2009.
Howard maybe should have pointed out that I have never, ever, suggested that the Flat Trainers’ championship should be decided on number of winners. If that were the case I could ‘claim’ to have been champion several times.
The BHA also recently made changes to the rules on starting procedures to allow ‘a higher degree of horseman flexibility’. We will now, albeit at the expense of incurring a criteria failure (three such failures in a twelve month period will result in a stalls test), be able to make a request for a horse to load late on its first ever start, and we will be able to request for a horse to load late with a blindfold (also a criteria failure).
This is a major step towards cooperation, for the benefit of all, between trainers and starters and I have no doubt whatsoever that it is the right move. I wonder why it has happened now. Has Tony Goodhew left?

           

Enigmatic?

James Underwood, in his excellent Annual Review, has given the title of ‘Enigma of the Year’ to the BHA’s chief executive Nic Coward. I couldn’t agree more.
I hear a huge amount about Nic Coward and what he is doing and, I have to say, I often hear what a good fellow he is but I never see him and I rarely, if ever, see any evidence of his achievements since arriving at the BHA.
I think I have met him twice and, if I remember correctly, it was at social function on both occasions. I don’t recall ever seeing him at the races, although I assume he must go; I haven’t seen him at the sales; and he has never visited my yard or approached me in his official capacity. What does he do?
He did tell us recently that the BHA is going to cut its administration budget in 2010 by £2M from £33M to £31M. He told us that the cuts are mostly coming in the field force – with judges, vets and security staff having to take on extra duties at the races – and he told us that BHA staff will ‘generally’ have to manage on the same wages but he didn’t give us much detail on this.
Apparently, the BHA will still pay bonuses to some staff but, according to Nic Coward, bonuses will only go to those with a ‘risk element’ to their jobs. What is he talking about?
I assume he doesn’t mean a risk of being kicked by a horse, of falling out of the judges’ box, or of being attacked by an irate punter so I am guessing that this is a ‘risk element’ relating to the financial performance of the BHA or of racing in general. I may be totally wrong but Nic Coward didn’t elaborate and so I’m guessing he is talking about the same sort of ‘risk’ that bankers talk of when they are looking for bonuses. I think we need some details. The BHA and racing have, as far as I can see, performed very badly in the last year and prize money is set to drop significantly again, so who is getting a bonus and why?

Sucking Eggs

While we’re on the subject of the BHA, I note that Yogita Popat, who is currently on suspension from her post at the BHA, is to leave the racing authority and join forces with Josh Apiafi (formerly of the Professional Jockeys Association) in a new sports consultancy called “Integrity In Sport.”
This is the woman who came to Middleham to teach her granny how to suck eggs or, should I say, to teach trainers about ‘inside information’. As far as I was concerned, she made a complete hash of it although, to be fair, it wasn’t entirely her fault as she was probably only following a protocol that had been laid down by others in her department (e.g. Paul Scotney) who, like her, lack a basic understanding of the sport of horse racing. I find it hard to imagine who might want to consult her on integrity in sport. Hopefully not the BHA. 

MJR Training Fees

I hope our owners haven’t been watching their mail every day and looking for that dreaded letter that I send towards the end of the year telling them of impending price increases. I can now put them out of their misery and tell them that it isn’t coming. We will be aiming to hold our prices at 2009 levels for the coming year.
I can’t deny that our prices have gone up nearly every year since I started training but, I believe, there was always good reason. For a start, we started at a very low rate and, as we always tried to justify rises in percentage terms, increases were small and we lagged a long way behind our competitors.
We also included more and more in our daily rate as the years went by until we reached the situation where everything is included except running expenses. This has caused confusion at times and, to this day, many owners find it hard to accept that we really will cover all veterinary expenses even when their horse is referred for surgery and the costs run to many thousands of pounds. We are also continually upgrading facilities and equipment and stretch the boundaries of the trainer’s service to include the likes of overground endoscopy. We have also always tried to ensure that we have an experienced and well rewarded workforce and those costs have risen dramatically over the years.
I now realise that times are tough and could get tougher and we all have to tighten our belts. Prize money in Britain will drop again next year and I feel that, although I will do my utmost to maximise income for our owners, I have to take that into account.
Government claims that inflation is zero, or that we may be in deflation, are hard to accept when fuel and transport costs are rising so dramatically and we are about to be faced with vastly increased rates, not to mention taxation. We will be faced with some suppliers seeking increases but we will try to hold costs down without cutting the service and, if at all possible, we will hold our prices, including for transport, until 2011 at least.
I urge owners, and potential owners, to read our terms carefully and ask them to consider our position when your horses are injured. It is understandable that those who have horses elsewhere will have become conditioned to remove their horses from the trainer during periods of recovery or to seek a reduction in rate but I ask you to consider that, in our case, we will have met all costs of veterinary investigation and treatment, however large, and all we ask is that you continue to pay the inclusive daily rate.
Everyone at MJR has enjoyed a very good year in 2009 thanks to the support and generosity of our customers and I believe that, given the same, or better, ammunition, we can enjoy an equally successful year in 2010 despite the financial climate.