Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Welsh Wizard,
At no stage did I ‘ support owners and deny punters rights’ I merely pointed out that Punters do not , nor ever have done, finance racing in its entirety as Cavellino suggested and indeed pay in a fraction of what owners do.And hearing punters say that they finance racing makes my blood boil just as much as owners pointing out that their stake in racing is larger than punters makes your blood boil! Punters support bookmakers paying to the big 3 alone over 10 times what they pay to racing. That is their choice as owning a racehorse is an owners choice. These are facts and not an emotional rant. In France all punting losses( except the tax going to the Government) comes back in to the sport to the benefit of spectators, racing employees, retired and injured jockeys and stable staff etc etc. I prefer that system you apparantly do not. As an owner I race my horses there more and more because I find it more enjoyable and I get more bangs for my buck. I am pleased that other UK owners are happy to continue to support British racing despite the cost to them and the lack of control they have over a sport to which they are the major contributors and the paucity of amenities that they enjoy when they go racing.
madman marz
"if we kept making mistakes". name me a jockey who has been done twice for this offence in, say, a 5 year period.
I am not against longer sentences for repeat offenders but it does not appear necessary.
Welsh Wizard,
I quite agree with you that owners should not expect subsidy but your comments equally apply to punters who are not forced to bet! So let us forget emotion and stick to facts – that was all I was asking Cavellino to do. Given that punters want to back (despite not being forced to) it is a common principle in every other sport eg football pools etc that the bookmaker pays the sport for the right to lay odds on it. If this is subsidising owners then so be it but no worse or different to subsidising football clubs. Nor do I hear outrage every time a footballer makes a mistake thereby costing fixed odd punters money.
Yeats
The facts are that a race is not lost( by a jockey easing up) every week. It happens every season but no more than 2 or 3 times. I was in Australia for 3 years and went racing every weekend and it happened there too but I have no figures to know the relative frequencies.
Whilst it is more than infuriating to the owners/trainers/punters who have lost a winner it is a source of much jubilation to punters and connections who have gained a winner – so the world has not come to an end. The jockey has to go down on bended knee to get a ride from the connections in the future ( as he should) and there are therefore plenty of in built deterrents in the system.
As you imply by your Norton anecdote – Jockeys want winners – and I am not at all sure that increasing penalties limit mistakes. A month without pay per mistake would cause mayhem in every other walk of life.
Yeats,
Gosh you are a hard man! I would love to be your boss if you are volunteering to take 6 months off unpaid every time you make a mistake at work! I bet I would struggle to get you to take 28 unpaid days off.
Cavelino,
Please do not keep on repeating the hoary chestnut that punters pay for the sport. Regrettably they pay less than £90 ( through the levy) million out of the total cost of £400 million of keeping horses in training. This figure is falling because it is raised through the levy which is falling.
The big funders of the sport are the owners and always have been long before off course betting was legalised roughly 50 years ago.
That is not to say that racing should not be straight for everyones benefit – not least the owners.
Tony,
You are quite correct Last Storm is our horse. After claiming her we attempted to get her to settle before putting her up in distance and on Tuesday she settled relly well and I am sure has improved by going up to 10F. The trainer is in top form too!
I also thoroughly agree with your comments on British Bookmakers. As far as the french position is concerned various friends tell me that the PMU’s position is historically stronger and longer than either the English Tote or Bookmakers and that even if the monopoly is legally broken it will take a long time for the French to change their betting habits. I hope they are right – but have considerable doubts.
Dave,
As someone who has a racehorse in France I think it will be a disaster for French racing if the PMU monopoly is lost.
We won a Saint Cloud claimer on Tuesday for which the winning prize was 10000 euros to which has to be added the 63% premium because the horse was French bred. Imagine winning around £11250 for an English race particularly a claimer! It means that winning a normal handicap at a reaonable(non provincial) track pays your training fees for the year.
Owners, trainers and stable staff facilities are second to none as indeed are those for punters. The problem is you must back on the PMU and the atmosphere whilst not being is desparate as Southwell on a wet monday is not matching York, Goodwood Ascot etc except at very big meetings such as the Arc,
I believe the PMU put around £325 million into racing last year compared to the English bookmakers £90 million cf their total profits of alomost £900 million.
It is a vexed question as to what the sport of horse racing is all about. To me as an owner-breeder it is more akin to human track athletics rather than to roulette. I know many punters disagree but I think it a nonsense that Bookmakers are the big, almost only winners out of UK racing.
Lasix is a commercial name for the drug "furosemide". It is a diuretic used to treat fluid retention ( edema) in people and animals with congestive heart failure, liver disease or kidney disorders and high blood pressure due to hypertension. It is this last reason that is the "nominal reason" it is fed to horses ie to lower blood pressure and stop them bleeding during racing. This is allowed in the USA but not, as far as I am aware, in any other jurisdiction,
I say the "nominal reason" for giving it to horses because the fact that the average horse will lose 20-30lbs when given Lasix is felt by some people to make them run faster. I think there are studies that suggest this although proof is difficult.
If a trainer uses it in UK he would be banned if picked up on a random blood test and in any event is probably wasting his time since if he withdraws it in sufficent time to have a clean blood sample then the horse will have retained the fluid again and his blood pressure would have started to rise again.
Tony25,
I agree with your sentiments about nearly horses and the fact that EA was not really closing at the end. My particular concern is to why he lugged in at the 2 f pole when Murtagh was really trying to get to work on him? I suspect he will remain a nearly horse because he is quirky but accept I am in a minority ( look forward to laying him next year if a decent 3yo comes through!)
Zoz,
most of my horses have come back to me on the farm and been reschooled prior to going on and becoming hacks, eventers etc. Given that the horse is a normal TB I usually let him down gradually over a few weeks in terms of cutting the calories in his food and get him turned out with a suitable companion within a month. Whilst out I do not fed them as long as they have plenty of grass in front of them. After about 6 weeks of turn out I start reschooling which for most is soon just a quiet hack – with a quiet companion – along country lanes. Frankly within 3/4 months of returning from training you have a perfectly tractable horse. Obviously if he is going eventing or whatever he has to go back to school but I pass them on to others once they are tractable.
Well I dont have any idea whats going on! but remembering that Ramonti was second in the Italian Derby on soft ground how come Excellent Art is 15/8 fav. Obviously on Sussex Stakes running Excellent Art had a great chance of turning the tables but at 15/8! – is this just the O’Brien fan club blindly backing their guru?.I cannot believe Tabor would have been on heavily at that price.
Wit,
I apologise to everyone if the bookmakers have done a pretty good job in snowing me as it would appear according to the figures that you are quoting.
I am now totally confused because adding up the net cost of sales for Betfair and Ladbrokes alone in the numbers you are quoting we are already way above the Levy raised according to the levy Board and as quoted in Seagulls post and we have not as yet taken into acount William Hills, Corals, Victor Chandler and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and alls claimed contributions.
Can you shine any light on this too? ie is the key word "principally" in the definiton of Cost of sales.? I cannot find any explanation on the Horse Race Levy Board’s website.
Reet Hard,
I believe that you are quite correct. The levy applies to gross profits not net profits the difference between the 2 being costs which cannot be "fairly" distributed to a single transaction ie betting office rents, rates, costs of television screens, licences fees etc etc. Since the margin on bookmakers is so much higher that on betfair( a standing feature of Betfairs adverts) their gross profits are much higher than Betfairs since they have far more overheads and costs to deduct before arriving at their net profits. Hence since racing gets 10% of gross profits it gets far more of the punters pound from bookmakers than it does from the exchanges – at least that is what I am led to believe although AP apparently thinks this interpretation is incorrect.
AP,
your response sounds authorative but then so does the owner of a string of betting shops who has given me a series of figures on Gross Profits ( rather than turnover) which now form the basis of the Levy.
Please feel free to post at length as to how racing benefits to the same extent from a pound bet on the Exchanges as it does on the bookmakers.
