The strange death of British champions

[Glenn]

Interesting article by Zorro in today’s Post pondering the reasons why the British don’t produce superstars any more. He bangs the usual drum of blaming the bookies and poor prize money.

While I do believe bookies are to blame, I don’t think poor prize money can go very far in explaining the reason. We’ve had poor prize money for decades yet have only stopped producing champions in recent years. We still attract the most expensive bloodstock, as the £11.7m flop yesterday attests, despite the prize money but we’ve stopped getting results. Why?

Let’s have a look at the list of the highest rated horses of the past couple of decades (my memory and database only goes back as far as Dancing Brave). There’s some dispute about the top ten horses in this period between official and private handicappers, but the top ten horses generally looks like this:

Dancing Brave
Dubai Millenium
Celtic Swing
Generous
Dayjur
Daylami
Intikhab
Sakhee
Warning
Old Vic

They all have two things in common
1) They all took advantage of minor stakes races to bring themselves along slowly
2) They all predate the competitive racing intitiative

Will we see their likes again? Probably not. Horses aren’t allowed to get an education these days in what we used to call ‘graduation’ races. There’s the odd minor stakes race left, but by and large the BHA are the delinquent parents of the racing world, sending their children down the pit to pay their way as soon as they can stand up. University isn’t on the agenda.

The trouble was too many favourites won these sort of races and too many each-way opportunities were created by them, so they had to go. If it means that we consistently get humiliated in international group ones too bad – a small price to pay in the BHA’s eyes for ensuring every race is a ‘levy generating opportunity’.

[Black Sam Bellamy]

Another rather fanciful attempt to feed your relentless agenda Glenn. Do you ever post on anything other than each-way betting ?

An alternative explanation for this apparent decline is that the two most dominant Northern Dancer sire lines in the European stud book…Danzig, through Danehill, and Sadlers Wells through himself and his own sons are predominantly controlled from Co Tipperary; have been for a few decades now and that the main competition in this country is being provided by an operation that consistently fails to deliver, despite buying the best of the alternative bloodlines. ie. Godolphin.

[richard]

For what it’s worth, I think the problem is that there aren’t enough indigenous UK nationals with the money or the interest in horeracing to invest in bloodstock.The number of stallion studs in the UK has been and is declining significantly (for flat horses) – as Kirsten Rausing constantly points out. Very few UK mare studs can compete with the Arabs, Coolmore and overseas, including Irish, buyers generally for the best bloodstock at the sales, whether foals, yearlings and so on upwards in age.

Ireland of course had the stallion tax exemption which served them very well and even though that has has been abolished the Irish government effectively subsdises Irish racing.

Zorro is essentially right I think.The UK is the only major horseracing jurisdiction where the governing body sees it’s prime function as making money for the off course bookmakers, who suck massive profits from the sport and pay a pittance for being handed that golden goose. But it is not just prize money, rather the amount of money available to UK racing in general. The French, for example have an excellent system which rewards French bred runners.

The worry is that with the UK economy heading south, even more of our better bloodstock will be sold to go abroad.

Without a fundamental reform of the way racing is financed, it’s hard to see how the situation can be remedied. As the bookmakers have a very good relationship with the current government, it may be unlikely that any significant change will happen.

richard

[RobinFromIreland]

Is it "death" or "dearth"?

[Alderbrook]

For what it’s worth, I think the problem is that there aren’t enough indigenous UK nationals with the money or the interest in horeracing to invest in bloodstock.The number of stallion studs in the UK has been and is declining significantly (for flat horses) – as Kirsten Rausing constantly points out. Very few UK mare studs can compete with the Arabs, Coolmore and overseas, including Irish, buyers generally for the best bloodstock at the sales, whether foals, yearlings and so on upwards in age.
richard

An excellent post Richard. I wonder how much of this we can relate to other things such as football, motor sport, car making, British manifacturing, British universities etc etc etc. I wonder why our economy is facing such a downturn, oh forgot, because of the world enonomy, nothing to do with our own governements domestic policy’s.

I don’t know if I can last til 2010……

Quite agree. The standard of spelling is appalling nowadays and I blame Tony Brown for it all.

[LetsGetRacing]

We’ve been operating on a false economy for years, Brown having done a bloody good job in hiding it until now. It’s just unfortunate that the sh*t has hit the fan just as fuel, gas and electricity prices are set to soar.

The rich will still be rich though.

[andyod]

Let me see now. Robert Sangster,Michael Tabor, Derick Smith, Not enough Englishmen with money and willing to invest in Bloodstock! How about those who invest in the NH horses?

[Remainder of post deleted – Cormack15]

[doyley]

Hello,

A couple of points:

I recently visited Leopardstown for a Wednesday night "Millers" meeting.
I was disappointed with the crowd, quite small considering it nestles next to a large city (Dublin), but what immediately struck me was the Prize Money for what appeared very average fare.
The average was easily into the £20K to the winner, although the card, outside one Listed Race, resembled a Ripon card.. , no disrespect there..
Secondly, what astounded me during the RA meeting was that Willie Carson was asked via one of the viewers E-Mails, I think, why American sprinters don’t come over to contest the RA sprints?
The first part of the reply was the drug issue…but more alarmingly Willie catergorically stated the RA Prize Money just isn’t big enough to attract the USA horses’.

I am not one to suppport bigger prize money, but our (UK) comparatively low prize money may have something to do with the current state of our Group results, how.. can be debated elsewhere..

regards,

doyley

[clivex]

I do wonder whether richer potential owners are more drawn to the NH game these days…

Having said that, the group one area is probably least affected by any economic downturns or prize money

All in all, its probably just a cyclical thing. There was a lot of concern about lack of British success at Cheltenham…but thats turned around now

[Zorro]

Hope you’re right, Clivex.

[cormack15]

I think the richer owners who want to invest as a hobby (the Graham Wylies, David Johnsons, Andy Stewarts, Trevor Hemmings of the world) see the jumping game as much more fun, where they are likely to be able to compete at the very top level with large-ish strings without having to break the bank, in relative terms of course.
While I don’t purport to have any knowledge of the reality of the situation and am just guessing for guessings sake, I’d guess that Hemmings’ investment, which has won him lots of the top prizes over the jumps and to regularly field runners (multiple runners on occasion) in the very best races, would have needed a fair slice of luck to make any kind of significant ripple in the flat game, as Wylie has found out.

[richard]

Think that is a good point Cormack. The cost of buying NH horses, whether for racing or breeding generally is significantly less than for primarilly flat horses.

Jumps racing is prevalent only in the UK, Ireland and France. The French buy very few horses at UK and Irish sales, and UK buyers are not competing with Darley, Americans, Japanese, Saudis and so on. Also, whilst I don’t know what the likes of P. N., H-J, D. P. charge in training fees, my experience for what it is worth is that jumps training fees are noticeably less than is usual with flat trainers.

The economics of NH ownership generally are more favourable to owners than is the case with flat racing, certainly from an overall cost point of view.

Also, getting back to one of Glen’s points, the jumping fraternity didn’t allow PDS to turn jumps racing into the bookies’ benefit that flat racing became under his chairmanship of the BHB. Instead, they instigated some changes (beginners chases for example), but kept the basic structure of the race program by type of race such as to encourage owners to keep horses in training. No artificial field size limits or artificially imposed handicap bands for example. One reason perhaps why the biggest increase in the type of horses in training is dual purpose horses, essentially flat horses being turned into jumpers.

richard

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