- This topic has 26 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 1 month ago by
.
- Posts
Some very strong words from trainer Richard Newland about the current state of British NH racing:
https://www.racingtv.com/news/dr-richard-newland-column-british-jumps-horse-racing-in-crisis
Newland seems to be suggesting something akin to a siege economy. Banning Irish runners except at Cheltenham and even then only allowing each trainer to have one runner in a race. There is absolutely no way that is going to happen. Newland is deluded if he thinks it will.
In all honesty, he comes across as a bit like a spolit child wailing about everything being unfair. Those nasty Irish are coming over and winning all our races! No one complained when British horses regularly won races in Ireland, which they did when I was first interested in racing.
I agree the British National Hunt scene is not very well at the moment but I do not see how protectionism is the solution. Isn’t it incumbent on British trainers to get better owners, better horses and better results? Most of the Irish trained winners were sold at public auction. Why couldn’t British trainers buy them?
And I don’t particularly like Newland’s sarcastic little reference to “Willie’s magic wand”. What exactly is he implying?
Absolute nonsense.
Just smacks of the ‘Closed-shop’ attitude prevalent in UK Jumps racing imho.
If the situation were reversed (like it was many years ago) he wouldn’t be saying squat about there being a problem and would likely be saying that the Irish trainers simply need to step up and do better.
A lot of Willie’s horses are privately bought before going to public auction and to me that is where he has a major advantage in that the process he has put in place to source and buy horses from France etc is light years ahead of his contemporaries.
There are a whole laundry list of things that rate as a bigger and more immediate threat to English Racing than the Irish being too successful at the Festival.
Yes, it is nonsense.
Unless it has escaped Newland’s attention, Dan Skelton had 4 winners at Cheltenham. OK, he has not covered himself in glory off the track recently and he got a helping hand from the handicapper with one of them. But he still had 4 winners, 2 in Grade 1s. He did not need any help.
Ben Pauling is building up an impressive operation. He had a winner and probably should have had two. He did not need any help either.
Nicky Henderson might be maddening in the way he is campaigning his horses nowadays – but he had an excuse for no winners this year and has had plenty in the past. He did not need any help.
No one likes seeing British National Hunt racing struggling but penalising the Irish for being too successful is not the way. What message does that send out? It would look like British trainers were rigging the pitch in their favour.
What he is suggesting will never happen. It would be open to legal challenge. I very much doubt the BHA would seek to antagonise the Irish trainers anyway.
Does he really think the BHA is going to make Mullins say to JP McManus “Sorry JP. I can’t run Fact To File in the Gold Cup. The BHA will only let me run one and I have already got Galopin Des Champs. You can run him in the Ryanair though. Or transfer him to Emmett.”
I doubt Cheltenham would like it either, given it would be making the racing worse and cause visitor numbers from Ireland to plummet.
By any consideration, his ideas are completely impractical and wrong.
I don’t think that’s tough talking strong words, in fact I’ve never read such abject defeatist snivelling in relation to the subject.
“More and more UK owners are using Irish trainers” Which ones? He mentions M+S and Cheveley Park. There’s also Tony Bloom and Ronnie Bartlett I suppose. And Kenny Alexander- though his mares come back to stud in GB. KTDA. That’s all I can think of.
Here are some of Willie’s big or recently successful owners:
JP- Irish billionaire. Gets quite a lot of horses- including expensive ones like the half million pound Jonbon- trained in GB
Donnellys- Irish, some decent horses sent to Henderson
Ricci- American. Willie got there first, tough. Sends the odd one to Venetia
Turleys- Irish
Gigginstown- Irish
H O S syndicate (Absurde) – Irish
Roaringwater syndicate- Irish
Closutton racing club- Irish
Owners for other Irish yards:
Morans- Irish
Brian Acheson (Robcour) – Irish
Barry Maloney- Irish
Declan Landy (Captain Guinness) – Irish
Flooring Porter syndicate- Irish
TJ McDonald, owner of £800 King George winner Hewick- IrishIn the “good old days” that Dr Newlands refers to- the 70s and 80s- Ireland was dirt poor, relatively speaking. Now there are a lot of people in Ireland who made a lot of money out of the likes of finance, tech and engineering, and when people in Ireland get rich they generally don’t buy yachts and football clubs. They buy land, big houses to put on the land, posh jeeps and racehorses.
“And I don’t particularly like Newland’s sarcastic little reference to “Willie’s magic wand”. What exactly is he implying?”
Drugs, and that’s the only bit of the article I agree with. I have no problem with the BHA doing out of competition testing on Irish horses considering they will be racing in the BHA’s jurisdiction.
This story seemed to go vewwy vewwy quiet rather quickly:I wonder if anything will come of it. I would be particularly interested if anti- nerve growth factor monoclonal antibody preparations were among the substances found. The dog and cat versions are veterinary prescription only injectibles licensed as Librela and Solensia respectively. There is no licensed equine version but I would be astonished if one has not been been knocked up in some dodgy lab abroad, smuggled in and tried by at least somebody somewhere on these isles (both sides of the Irish Sea).
Nonsense from both of them, him and Julie Harrington.
What’s this supposed to mean? “If they make Irish trained horses ineligible, the bigger UK owners would return to having their horses trained by UK trainers and the trend would start reversing”
Well how about making the most interesting aspect (it’s only my opinion) in horse race ownership – the return on investment – more attractive?
Surely, if you reduce the number of races you’ll have more horses competing which automatically results in a lower average return of prize-money. I don’t know how this works when you send a 150k or 200k gelding to run in a maiden hurdle worth 4k to the winner while facing 12-15 opponents?
I understand that big owners like JP, maybe even Gigginstown don’t care much about their ROI, but much more for the silverware. But, if I should ever get involved in owning a race-horse while trying not to burn money, I’ll always be looking into the statement of revenues and expenditures at the end of the year.
Does the BHB have a recipe for that? It won’t work, if you just ban Stuart Crawford horses from running at Ayr.
Very good points, green. About that Kildare raid in 2021, which yard was it?
Closutton is based in County Carlow…..Also, graded races in GB have been won by Gold Tweet and Il Est Francais in the past couple of seasons. Does he want to ban the Frenchies as well? They’ll have to change the name of the International hurdle for starters
Green – that is what I took Newland’s remark to mean. If he thinks Mullins’s horses are drugged, he should have the courage to say it, rather than making a snide remark.
He comes across as whining and entitled. He should put more effort in buying some better horses and getting some better results. He had a Grand National winner a decade ago but that does not entitle him to good horses forever.
“It won’t work, if you just ban Stuart Crawford horses from running at Ayr.”
Stuart Crawford trains near Larne, famously home to that perennial eighth wonder of the world, the Craigyhill bonfire. I wonder what its residents would think of one of their most successful sons being banned from making part of his living in Scotland, on the grounds of being considered Irish.
“He had a Grand National winner a decade ago but that does not entitle him to good horses forever.”
The winner the following year was Oliver Sherwood, who instead of whining when training became nonviable for him, joined forces with Harry Derham. Speaking of which, have you seen the Harry Derham yard tour on youtube where he explains the setup of his new place? It’s really interesting, informed by his time working at the coalface as a lad and the whole vibe of the video is fresh and positive.
Neither did Lucinda Russell whimper that “The Grand National dream has been taken away”. She trains in the back end of nowhere, spends a fortune in diesel to get anywhere and doesn’t have billionaire owners at her fingertips, but won the big race twice for two different sets of owners since Pineau de Re’s win.
Lucinda is very good at buying horses for non-astronomical sums of cash. Her horses seem to develop when maturing and they usually have a few good seasons in them.
I think she could be the next trainer targeted by bigger Irish owners, unless she wouldn’t be interested.Dr Newland thinks that Horse Racing Ireland should contribute to GB prize money. Perhaps the good doctor can tell us where the headquarters of the health diagnostics company that sponsors GB NH racing’s richest and most famous race is located. Perhaps he might also care to reflect if the owner of that company would be quite so keen to sponsor the race if his horses were restricted from running in it.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.