South African owners are mugs

Taken from Aushorse

The basic rule of thumb is that a horse will cover its annual costs by winning one Saturday city race a year. A Saturday race in Sydney is $85,000, in Melbourne $80,000 and Brisbane $65,000.

Another thing to be clear on from the start is the trainer's commission on the horse's winnings. Usually it is 10% which is subtracted by race clubs from the prizemoney and paid directly to the trainer. But private arrangements are sometimes made for an additional payment by the owner.

Jockeys are paid 5% of the prizemoney their horse wins which is also subtracted directly and they also receive a basic fee of $186 (as of 2015) for a losing ride, paid by the race club, not by the owner.

I remember looking this up a few years ago and the criteria was how many months training fees vs a maiden win

SA was better than UK but the above is impressive

My Aussie mate says that for the average Joe owning a horse in Australia is a huge waste of money

Wonder what he'd say about South Africa

Was reading an article on the racing post website the other day

Trainer had two or three runners at Windsor, the cost some fancy amount. Just say £60000 each. Their stable fees were £1300 per month each and they were being asked to race against £1m horses for purses of £3k

Windsor prize-money slammed by owners
BY KEITH MELROSE6:37PM 12 APR 2017
Winning owners at Windsor on Monday have criticised the levels of prize-money on offer at the track and others, saying that it keeps new owners out of the sport.

The fresh broadside comes after Richard Hannon insisted he would reduce his runners at the Berkshire course unless the situation improved, echoing the sentiment of fellow trainer William Haggas in his condemnation of prize-money on offer at Southwell, which is owned, like Windsor, by Arena Racing Company.

Harry Herbert, managing director of Highclere Thoroughbred Racing whose Commodity, a 190,000 guineas yearling, won the mile handicap, said: "It's desperately poor prize-money. You're always delighted to win a race, but when the first prize is about £2,900 added value and we're getting about 50 per cent of that, it's a sad state of affairs.

"I've just got back from Australia and we should be very envious of the systems over there. If you race over there on a Saturday in Victoria or New South Wales, you're racing for $100,000, minimum, per race."

Harry Herbert
Herbert added: "It's the same if you go anywhere abroad. The comments are coming thick and fast about how pitiful prize-money is in the UK. The money is always going up in these places and here it is static.

Speaking of the plight owners face, Herbert said: "Ownership is always getting more expensive. It's rare you get a year without training fees or vets' bills going up. Then you end up with the sort of situation we saw at Windsor on Monday and it causes a lot of frustration among those in the industry. There are a lot of people's livelihoods at stake and we want to encourage ownership, and both of those are difficult when you see things like that.

"Obviously we can stand there, puff out our chest and say we have the most competitive racing in the world, the most beautiful tracks and so on, but there's not a lot we can say about winning a race like that and the owners getting a net return of about £1,000."

Paul Coombe, manager at Chasemore Farm, owners of Captain Peacock who won the 1m3f handicap, said: "We picked up just over £2,500 for winning that race on Monday and that doesn't cover costs for the month. But what else can you do? Where else do you go? There's no other way to make money with a racehorse in training."

Chasemore Farm is owned by Betfair co-founder Andrew Black and Coombe added, echoing Herbert: "In Australia it's such a people's sport, everyone is involved in a horse, whereas we struggle to keep owner-breeders enthused here let alone get new people into it.

"We need to have a proper look at prize-money, but we keep going round in the same circles."

He concluded: "It's a shame that such a great industry and a great sport that we don't make it attractive enough to people outside. Any businessman who's looking in will be saying why do I want to buy racehorses, when we have to put in all those months of work to win one month's worth of training fees?"

Poor prize-money has been a recurring issue presented on the BHA's table and the organisation's head of media, Robin Mounsey, said on Wednesday: "Racing and funding at the grass roots level will has been identified as the priority area for the sport to address when the enhanced funding starts to flow from the imminent levy replacement."

All the races at Windsor were run at the minimum value based on levels introduced in April 2015 and negotiated by the Horsemen's Group, who want a further increase and for courses to stop staging cards where all the races are for the lowest allowable purse.

Bokked wrote: My Aussie mate says that for the average Joe owning a horse in Australia is a huge waste of money

Wonder what he'd say about South Africa

Its all about the hope of winning the Melbourne Cup or the Met or the Derby.

I don't think that horse racing has ever really been about making money but rather about making memories and to be honest it originated because of a clash of ego's.

Problem is that making memories are a lot less fun when the costs have blown completely out of proportion to the growth in stakes.

Most people accept that making money from racing is a rarity rather than a normality but having some fun as an owner has never looked this uninspiring in years gone by. If a solution isn't sought racing will forever carry the tag as an elitist sport and will never shake it in the absence of appealing to a new multi-racial generation of owners.

The funding model is where it is all going horribly wrong with no new racing growth initiatives introduced and unlikely to be at any stage if looking at operators alternative strategic preferences.

We should stop kidding ourselves that decisions on racing is about anything other than profits.

Oops

rob faux wrote: I remember the comments that came with corporatisation......more businesslike.....thats great......little did I realize it would be all the worst examples of business management!

rob faux wrote:

rob faux wrote: I remember the comments that came with corporatisation......more businesslike.....thats great......little did I realize it would be all the worst examples of business management!

......yehp.... owing horses hardly makes any business sense at all .......especially to the astute business minded folk looking for a ROI.....however if the passion grabs one ....it is then more easy to fall in.....then comes the hard cold reality about the way the owner is on the wrong end of the stick...... :S

In the eighties it cost R1 a line for exotics.......now you can take for 1c a line.........so they delete couplings ......whose the genius?
They need to inflate prices to this century!