- This topic has 19 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 3 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Not sure what the situation in the UK is but over here in Ireland, any two bit trainer has not had difficulty getting horses in recent years. What with the weekly costs, vetinery fees and entry as extra, the bills can be staggering So…are they just experts making an honest (mostly) buck, living in a world of expensive employees and high insurance or are they milking those of us desperate enought to want to be part of a dream?
Does anyone actually know what their profit margins are???
SHL
Anyone who thinks that any trainer outside the top 10 is making serious money, is in a dreamland.
Of course some trainers will do their owners for any penny they do, and don’t, have. However, the owners cant blame the trainers for doing them over, if they were daft enough to be had!I don’t know if any of you read Kim Baileys excellent daily blog, but he’s been saying that training fees should be paid via Wetherbys because it’s still all done in very much of a shake of the hand sort of way, and sometimes owners move horses away and never pay any fees owing.However, I do have to chuckle at news items about Pam Sly’s stables referring to her as a bit of a poor country mouse compared to the big boys, and then look around me at my own little abode! [not knocking Pam by the way, was and still am chuffed to bits about the success of Speciosa and lets hope there are a couple more races to be won before she goes to the paddocks]. But it is another world I think…..mo
I think the days when trainers could make a profit from training fees alone have long gone. It’s probably not been possible since before the war.
re Iris’s Gift – followed him [quite literally followed him, purely by chance] the year he won the stayers – and we were in Ireland when he was beaten by Rhinestone Cowboy when, or so we were led to believe, connections didn’t realise that the other horse was going to take him on and beat him.Seemed a bit unfair to me as all of ‘Ted’s’ connections had gone over to see him win. Still think he should have stayed over hurdles. Does anyone know how the horse is these days?Very fond memories of the old horse….
It’s impossible to comprehend the costs involved in running a racing stable pending on how many corners get cut. I worked for a racing stable and working on similar costs you can summary with an idea to the costs –
Working on the basis of 40 horses IN trainingThe feed bill works out £3500 per calendar month
Eight staff had combined wages of £8000per month. Forget National Insurance contributions and such like at the minute.
The advertised training bill of £180 would have been matched by no less than three owners.
Most negotiated to £150 per week
You can’t charge local friends and neighbours top dollar which ensured they only paid £130 per week.
One owner had a deal of paying for four horses to the cost of three.
Two horses were recommended by another trainer for a change of scenary. You need to cut them out a few quid also.
The trainer owned 8 of the 40 horses
In a two year period 21 horses were purchased from the sales – two were or are winners for the yard. If you can’t sell the purchase you’ve copped another one on your books.
The cost of motoring up and down the country doesn’t come cheap. The lorry needs jungle juice and maintenance plus you’ve either got to hire one or purchase a horsebox and in some cases you may need additional horseboxes for more than one meeting. That’s all priced into 80p per mile calculations.
You need a good surface to work the horses on the slopes. Running rails, starting stalls and/or minimum Jockey Club requirement of three fences. Unless your paying gallop fees to your owner in one of the major training establishments your looking at 120k to lay a polytrack surface over 5f.
As mentioned your going to have outstanding debts which escalate when you retain the horse in a box hoping to get paid and all trainers kop a bad bill from time-to-time.
Of the 40 horses – they aren’t all going to be kept busy on a training schedule and might be chucked out in the field – which generally reduces the Owners cost and trainers income by half the weekly training rate.
I agree not many trainers perhaps 20% of those who hold a public licence make a living rather than exist attempting to fleece BUT I don’t believe any trainer who say they try and limit the numbers of horses through the doors and concentrate with individual attention.
I wonder how many survive through kickbacks and ‘no lose’ accounts (!)
re Iris’s Gift – followed him [quite literally followed him, purely by chance] the year he won the stayers – Does anyone know how the horse is these days?Very fond memories of the old horse….
Yes – keep eyes peeled, there’s a slim chance that we may not have seen the last of him….
Nayo, You forgot the:
operators license,
trainers license,
insurance.
Rent/mortgage is a big factor. The ones with a hefy mortgage on their own property are lucky, inflated rent within an ‘area’ is a killer.
The trainer you worked for obviously wasn’t a very good businessman. If my dad started doing deals like that the old girl would leave him!
Surely there can’t be many that run things in that way?
I’m not sure I agree with your last comment. Staff is the biggest cost, the more horses a trainer has, the lower his contribution to the work gets.
I could almost be entirely sure that any trainer with 20 horses will always make more money than a trainer with 40 horses (not accounting for prizemoney, and assuming they were properly run yards).Oh god – the new Monsignor!
Haha, not quite! But the fact that connections of Iris’s Gift have tentatively queried on more than one occasion in the last couple of months if the horse is qualified to go Point-to-Pointing in 2008 (he is) seems to suggest that the injury may not be as serious as first thought. It is still extremely unlikely that he will be seen on any racecourse again, but the question has been asked.
Don’t know but stories like the one with Robert lester and Iris’s Gift and inspirational for all of us though his fallout with Jonjo probably tells it’s own tale with regards to the title of this thread. He had a little pop at Jonjo about training fee’s did’nt he, and did’nt his daughter used to come on this forum, where is she? Maybe she can break the ice.
Yep, Irisgift1 (the daughter) and Roblester (the son) were semi-regulars on here for a while, but running a quick user search on this site reveals they have not posted since March 07 and December 06 respectively. Whilst basically pretty open about the campaigning of Iris’s Gift here, I think certain of the criticisms of the gelding wore them down a little, judging by the sensitive responses thereto on occasion.
I’m not 100% sure what the appeal of Steve Wynne is to the Lesters as their current trainer of choice, compared to other handlers in the locality such as Donald McCain, Michael Mullineaux, Richard Ford or Lisa Williamson. Cost, perhaps, or appreciation of his handling of point-to-pointers in the years prior to him getting his license.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
I don’t know if any of you read Kim Baileys excellent daily blog, but he’s been saying that training fees should be paid via Wetherbys because it’s still all done in very much of a shake of the hand sort of way, and sometimes owners move horses away and never pay any fees owing.
That’s a very, very good shout. Not everyone will have shed a tear for Richard Guest when he ran into his money problems a year ago; but whilst some of those may have been due to over-expenditure on fancier bloodstock which didn’t perform as intended, just as many were caused by non-paying owners and syndicates.
I suspect there may be a well enough placed person or two on TRF to be able to confirm whether or not Weatherbys Bank has sufficient resource to be able to manage all fees in the way Kim Bailey has mentioned, or indeed whether WB would want to go down that route.
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Weatherbys are fully able to pay the bills straight from the owners accounts. The problem is that it has to be instigated by the owner. A trainer can not request that he is paid in this way.
I can’t imagine it would take anything more than a simple rule change – the software is already in place.There are many trainers that have started out in a very small way and some have progressed to become champion trainers.
Noel Chance for example had just 3 horses in his care when he was training on the Curragh. He must have done everything himself then.
When he won his first Cheltenham Gold Cup he had just 15 horses in his rented yard and it took time and another Cheltenham Gold Cup for him to get the class of horse he now deserves.Paul Nicholls had just 15 moderate horses when he started and due to his dedication and skills has assembled about the best National Hunt team that has ever been in this country.
Martin Pipe also started out in a very small way and many of his methods and the way he trained horses had never been seen before but the results speak for themselves.
Mark Johnston started out by training on an old Lincolnshire airfield which does not seem ideal but again by his skills has become one of the best trainers in the country.
As the old saying goes ‘some cant train Ivy up a wall’ so its no suprise that many will always struggle but that is the same as in any business.
In ten years time no doubt there will be trainers that no one knows much about at present but they will be doing well and it will because the have the skill whether on the gallops or by trawling through the entry book to seek out the best possible race to compete in.
Jack Berry built a good reputation when he was training and the results speak for themselves but his son Alan clearly has not been blessed with the same skills.
So its no suprise really that the likes of Mark Johnston will always be offered the best horses and the better stable staff will no doubt follow and the trainers that dont do so well will get modest horses and less experienced staff.
Apologies to whoever said it first (can’t be arsed to scroll back up – sorry!!) but I agree with them that anyone who thinks the majority of trainers are creaming a profit is in cloud cuckoo land. Anyone who wants to become a trainer wants their head read for financial reasons alone – I say that as I would love to train bit would never entertain the idea unless I had a never-ending pot of money & could train all my own horses. Most owners are a pain in the backside who rarely if ever pay on time and are about as dependable as British Rail. They are the root of the overwhelming majority of financial problems trainers get themselves in.
Hi guys
Sorry this is such a late reply (by about 2 years!!) i haven’t been on here for ages and came across this and will try and shed some light for you.
Firstly ted is great in a feild chilling out, hunting and loving eating lots of mints still!!!As you can imagine stories that you read or hear are not always true and this is the first ive heard of us enquiring about ted to go pointing, we said from day one that he had earnt his keep and should have a chilled out retirement. Also jonjo and dad haven’t fallen out they still keep in contact regularly, he has been a family friend for years. The only reason that all our horses didn’t run for jonjo is that they would go there for a couple of weeks and jonjo would assess the horses ability and not all horses can make the mark, so for a bit of fun and days out we sent iris’s flyer to Steve Wynne’s.
Meg x
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.