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Was reading the result of the French derby when I noticed the prize money won by st marks basilica was nearly 30% more than the Epsom derby. I checked the French Guineas v the 2000 Guineas and smb won 40% more for winning the French Guineas than poetic flair did winning at Newmarket.
To show just how poor the prizemoney is on the uk aiden O’Brien has won 100 grand more with three trips to France than mark johnston who is second in the British trainers championship. No wonder the uk is struggling to attract top owners.In a nutshell the betting revenue in France goes to finanace the sport, in the UK the horse racing industry has a battle for scraps with the bookmakers with government acting as an intermediary. It isn’t going to change unless there’s a sea change politically on the subject.
France and Ireland have better prize money. British racing attracts the best only because of its history / prestige. That prestige effect can only last a certain amount of time and imo seems to be coming to an end. Something needs to be done but what?
Upping bookmaker contributions? Bookmaker profits come from punters, so can only result in the comparatively poor punters paying more to the comparatively rich owners… Is that fair? Will make profitable betting a lot harder… And if bookmakers pay more how do we make exchanges pay the same – otherwise bookmakers would go out of business leaving only exchanges?
I think the authorities missed a trick. Had they reduced the Tote take out to 1% per horse then they’d have been supremely competitive against both bookmakers and exchanges and many of us would’ve gone over to Tote betting?
If I were a billionaire I’d buy the Tote, do 1% per horse and (once I’d got a bit back) give the company or all profits to “Racing”.
Value Is EverythingIts a joke really. On one hand, some get all precious about ‘The Derby’, being the oldest and best. Not to be called English or Epsom, just THE Derby.
On the other hand the race is dwarfed in prize money by the much maligned French Derby. Soon to be dwarfed in prestige too in my opinion, agree with GT. In twenty years it will be called the ‘Coolmore National Hunt Stud Epsom Derby’ unless the powers that be wake up.
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Ginge
Spot on about the Tote. It was Fred Done’s plaything for a while, he got bored with it and now it’s drifting. The classic move was when they increased the take from the pools to ‘make it more competitive’. Racing thus arrived at ‘1984’.
Rob
I remember going to Belmont Park when I was on holiday in New York. It cost $2 to get in for a 10 race card featuring two Grade 1s and where the cheapest race was worth $40,000.
All because of the Tote monopoly.The downside was the large take out from the pool. You were getting cheap admission but ripped off as a punter.
Regardless of all else we are overloaded with racing, net result being that there’s too many slices of bread for the jam available.
I’ve been doing ratings for my threads on Daily Lays and Plays. For UK racing I stick to Class 3 or better of which from last Sunday through to Wednesday there have been 9 handicaps, only one of which has has a double figure field and intial look at Thursday suggest no better. I know the ground is probably against a few but this is not an unusual situation and surely there should be less races but bigger prizes? I’m comparing this with Irish handicaps where single figure fields are the exception rather than the rule and I’ve found it generally a lot tougher to crack, in part due to horses meeting each other regularly and conditions rather than direct form having more influence.
Racing Post had a report last week stating the prize money issue in UK:
https://www.racingpost.com/news/insight/prize-money-how-do-other-nations-fund-such-bigger-pots-than-britain/491643This has comparison among major racing jurisdictions.
Good for them to make it free to view.
Good afternoon – “Precious” here.
The prize money is lousy, they overwatered, and I couldn’t rate this year’s winner above 115 BUT it’s still “The Derby!”
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"AND the Prix du Jockey Club has completely mislaid 330 yards of turf at Chantilly!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"What do you mean? Was the race short? The time looked impossible for 10.5f on soft.
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I meant the race used to be 1m4f.
It is a feature of French racing that they will often call it Soft but nearly break standard.
Either it isn’t that Soft or the RP standard times are wrong.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I’d rather THE Derby reduced to 10.5f. I wouldn’t dare say that within swinging distance of you though Ian!
And yes, it would be nice to know which though. I backed a real mudlark at Chantilly, more fool me I suppose.
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It is a feature of French racing that they will often call it Soft but nearly break standard.
Either it isn’t that Soft or the RP standard times are wrong.
Or the race distance is wrong.
Seem to remember a few years ago a times expert pointing out French race distances were not accurate and moving of rails which can be significant are not publicised and/or not allowed for in calculations.
Is that still the case?
Value Is EverythingAbsolute shambles if a Classic is not run over the correct distance mind.
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The differences are even more stark lower down the quality scale. I don’t imagine Coolmore are that bothered about prize money once a certain threshold has been passed.
Today in France, the sole meeting was at St-Cloud, a fairly prestigious course, but just a run of the mill meeting, 8 races with total prize money of 214k euros of which the winners take is 50%.
Meanwhile in the UK, we have five meetings (so already you can see what one of the problems is) and at both Ayr and Salisbury the total win prize money doesn’t get above £30k.
The third home in the 12f 4yo and upwards handicap at St Cloud took home more than the winner of any race at those UK courses.
Sadly although I can identify the problems, I don’t have any solutions (well not ones that are likely to get off the ground).
Hi Ian!
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