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Owes them (HMRC) £233,263 and plus another £108,326 to Tattersalls, £38,073 to Goffs and so on.
I was just wondering how can you buy a horse without paying the full price?.Well, I guess her training operation wasn’t a success and I’m sure she’s not the only one struggling in this sphere. I mean £57,211 were owed to Newmarket Equine Hospital and also money owed to veterinary practices in the US, Ireland and Dubai. Just wondering what they tell you when they can’t pay the bills.
It’s really sad that she got that far into debts. Maybe training racehorses is just a bad business, if you don’t have the financial firepower surrounding you.As there have always been, there’ll be more in her position or various levels of it. It’s a reverse-ransom business: if they don’t pay you, you hang onto their horses anyway, keep feeding it, housing it etc. in case they take it away (and don’t pay you anyway).
If the BHA had a rule for owners that they paid through Weatherbys, such trainers might have half a chance. What is perhaps more surprising in the chain is how those suppliers allow the trainers so much credit given how precarious the whole caper is.
The reality is that owning horses for the majority of people is a disaster. You pay a fortune to be able to say your horse had won a nondescript race. Over the years, the percentage of prize money to cost has got steadily lower.
Other trainers will be struggling. It really is frightening!
“The reality is that owning horses for the majority of people is a disaster.”
Barney Curley, in his famous altercation with Luke Harvey and John McCririck, told them “when you buy a racehorse, you lose 80% of your money overnight.”
Those numbers are more then enough to keep you awake at night , I can only akin it to farming , it’s a way of living with little reward at the lower level
ERL,
She’s not even close to the antics of Alan Jarvis, who was refused a licence when he owed £868,000 to Doncaster Bloodstock sales and declared bankruptcy for the second time.
This is worth a read to show how far some will go:
APPEAL BOARD DECISION AND ORIGINAL LICENSING COMMITTEE REASONS IN RESPECT OF ALAN JARVIS
One of the issues with this is that a genuine buyer can be outbid for a horse by someone that has no intention of paying. The latter can just keep bidding regardless of the price.
Thanks for the link, Alan.
The first time I read something about a trainer being broke was in the late 90s when Nigel Twiston-Davies admitted to have more debts than Argentina.The main problem you have before you even have a runner is buying the right horse. Ive seen many ex-PTP horses with just a win under their belt being sold for 150k-300k. The ones that David Maxwell used to buy in France for over 200k rarely were world-beaters. Trying to keep a horse in training and sound for maybe 4-5 seasons almost seems impossible.
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