Early entries and where race entry fees go?

Article by Daragh Ó Conchúir

Early entries only ever enter the public forum for the really elite races. Further down the chain however – and not a lot further down - the coverage they generate is on the very slim side of limited. As a reason for the raft of early entry deadlines in place throughout Europe, publicity doesn’t stack up.

And with ante-post betting becoming ever more unattractive, punters aren’t paying the same attention they used to either.

The primary function of early entries is to raise revenue. 

“I suggest that any racecourse executive who nowadays claims that early closing races are primarily for anything other than fundraising purposes, is being disingenuous,” Andrew Cooper, clerk of the course at Epsom and Sandown, tells us.

There is a price to pay for this, according to Mark Johnston, the legendary ex-trainer, whose finger remains very much on the pulse even if he has turned the licence over to his son, Charlie.

“If you want to have the best horses in the race, you make the closing date for entries as late as possible, so that people enter the horses that are best suited to the race and are most likely to run and win,” says Johnston. “But that doesn’t gather enough entry fees and hence you have all these early closing entries.”

How much is raised? Where does it go? Are owners bearing the brunt of an inability by racecourses to secure greater commercial support?

“One of the biggest issues, when you start to get below the details and talking about prize money, it’s probably more elements of transparency,” states Louise Norman, CEO of the British Racehorse Owners’ Association (ROA).

“Where does the money go in? How does it come back out? That’s a big issue for owners… that builds a lack of trust. So if you haven’t got trust, if you haven’t got transparency, we’ve got a bit of an issue.”

The trend towards shorter periods of time from early closing to race day generally, is a clear acknowledgement that no amount of accumulated revenue can justify not having the best horses in the elite races, as Johnston refers to. 

A detailed look at entries in Britain, Ireland and France

BRITAIN

Six-day entries are the standard, and are overseen by the British Horseracing Authority, but thereafter, racecourses can offer early closing. Some are historical, such as the Derby and the Classics, but courses must apply to the BHA if they want to make a new race an early closer.

Apart from the Derby, Group 1 races must close no more than nine weeks before running, Group 2s at seven weeks and heritage handicaps a maximum of six weeks. Group 1s/2s for two-year-olds, no more than seven weeks.

The closing date for first entries for the Derby this year was February 23, with the race due to take place on June 7. There is a second entry stage on April 23. There are three confirmation deadlines in between those initial entry stages, adding £11,000 to the £3,000 (first entry) or £12,000 (second entry) outlay. To supplement by noon on June 2 will set you back £75,000.

Stakes for all pattern races are 1% of the total prize fund for Group 1s, 0.85% for Group 2s and 0.7% for Group 3s. Those figures are higher at racecourses that have signed a Premier Prize Money agreement: 1.25%, 1% and 1%. No more than 25% of those sums can be charged at entry point. 

Supplementary fees cannot exceed 10% of the total prize fund but there is encouragement in the BHA general instructions (BARGI) to ensure the supplementary fee “shall be sufficient such as to make this route relatively unattractive (i.e. ideally more than 5%).”

Prize money for 2025 is just above £188m, and the owners’ contribution to that has risen to more than £25m. Indeed, owners’ contribution to prize money in Britain has increased by more than 35% since 2021. And even this year, the owners’ increase was 5.1%, whereas the racecourses’ contribution went up by only 2%.

Meanwhile, prize money overall has increased by less than 15% in the past decade or so, while costs have increased by 40%. None of that makes pretty reading for owners and it shouldn’t for anyone with a long-term interest in the sport.

It is the racecourses that decide what value they’re going to run a race for, and this invariably includes an assumption about how much in entry stakes they’re going to get, and therefore, what their contribution to the prize fund may be. The Levy Board contribution will remain unchanged so if they get more or less in entry fees, that either adds or deducts from what it will cost them. 

There have been some notable changes to early entry processes. The Derby is an interesting case model. Epsom introduced a yearling entry scheme in December 1991 for the 1993 Derby, with a March three-year-old entry option as a back-up. This was to generate sufficient contributions from owners to be able to increase prize money significantly to £800,000. With 634 entries at £200 a yearling, that goal was achieved.

Andrew Cooper inherited that structure when appointed clerk of the course at Epsom in 1996. With the entries declining to 448 by 2018 and the race now worth £1.5m, it was time to reconsider. Following discussions with owners, trainers and breeders, and the Covid pandemic muddying the waters, Cooper instigated the introduction of three-year-old entries in 2022.

“Ninety horses entered in February and just two in April,” Cooper details. “By the final confirmation stage in race week, this new structure had generated in total £598,000 of a £1.5m purse (39%).

“In my view the strength of this latest structure is that it produces in February a list of realistically ongoing potential Derby horses, whilst at least matching the entry income to us of the previous scheme. Whilst the cost of yearling entry was deliberately kept low - most recently £560 per horse - there was always an understandable level of dissatisfaction with some professionals at paying for entry to a race before the horse in question had ever raced, and potentially hadn’t even been named or galloped in earnest.”

Mark Johnston has praised the changes made to the Derby entry process, arguing that it has produced a better race.

“On balance I tend to agree - the right and best horses are still lining up at Epsom, but via arguably a more conventional and reasonable or affordable route,” Cooper declares. “I don’t believe the calibre of the Derby has altered - but there is probably less likelihood now of horses such as Golden Horn (2015) joining the field at the supplementary stage at a costly premium.”

Royal Ascot have reverted to a normal entry system for their four Group 2s and reverted to a normal entry system and are also returning entry fees for all horses that declare in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes in full, except for supplementary entries. 

The BHA have introduced a number of races that have a second entry stage before the supplementary stage for two-year-old races in particular this year, again, with a view to providing perhaps more realistic opportunities.

IRELAND

On the Flat, all Group 1s, Group 2s, 3yo+ Group 3s and €100,000 handicaps are early closers. Group 1 early closing dates vary while Group 2s generally close five weeks before race day, Group 3s three weeks ahead and premier handicaps two weeks ahead.

Over jumps, all Grade 1s and €100,000 handicaps have early entries but the lead-in is quite short at three weeks for Grade 1s and a fortnight for the valuable handicaps.

Cumulative cost to run via various entry stages in all races is 1% of the prize fund, while supplementary fees in weight-for-age early closers are 10%, apart from the Irish Derby and Irish Champion Stakes. It will be €100,000 to supplement to the Irish Derby this year, for a guaranteed prize value of €1.25m.

The Irish Classics once closed in April of the two-year-old season but in 2005, the first entry dates were changed to September. In 2014 the Irish Derby and Irish Oaks moved to a November closing – November 6 for this year’s renewals on June 29 (Irish Derby) and July 20 (Irish Oaks).

It is €2,500 to make your initial entry for the Irish Derby but €20,000 if waiting for the second entry point on May 14, by which time, two forfeit stages of a cumulative €6,250 in stakes will have passed. There is one more forfeit stage on June 24 for the Derby that will cost €3,750. That is the same day as the supplementary deadline.

“In response to stakeholder feedback, the structure of the fees at the various entry and forfeit stages of the Derby have been reviewed and reduced over time,” HRI’s director of racing, Jonathan Mullin informs us.

“The early closing system in Ireland remains under review on an annual basis and it has been the subject of tweaks and adjustments over time, particularly the Irish Derby and Irish Oaks.

“The Irish Derby is further supported by an extensive number of races in which the winner, or the first four in the case of the Derby, Prix du Jockey Club and Irish 2000 Guineas, qualify for a refund of their entry fees if they run in the Irish Derby.”

Curragh CEO, Brian Kavanagh backs the current system, with its added second entry and supplementary entry stages, as well those aforementioned incentives regarding entry fee refunds.

“This has worked well in the past and I think it is fair to say that every horse that wants to run in the Irish Derby has the opportunity to do so,” Kavanagh opines.

Prize money in Ireland increases by €1m to €70.9m for 2025, helped by an increase in government funding via the Horse & Greyhound Fund.

According to Horse Racing Ireland, owners’ entry fees contribute approximately 25% of the overall prize money budget, which comes to around €18m this year. This is a higher percentage than in Britain but less than in France.

HRI guarantees the prize money in all races from its budget, whether the contributions from the sponsor and entry fees reaches the race value or not.

It should be noted that in Ireland, executive contributions from racecourses are voluntary, rather than mandatory, as is the case in Britain. Some of the bigger tracks make contributions to prize money for their feature races to increase competitiveness, particularly if attempting to attract an international element. 

These racecourse contributions from the racecourses in Ireland are completely independent of entry fees, as these are collected by HRI.

FRANCE

Group 1 entries have their own specific entry dates with the French Classics in February (the Poule d’Essai des Poulains on February 19 at a cost of €1,500), the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (May 14 @€8,300) and the group races of Arc weekend at the end of July.

Other Group 1 races close between six and eight weeks prior to the day of racing. Group 2 and Group 3 races now close between four and a half and five weeks prior to the day of racing. Up until 2024, it was three and a half weeks.

Entry fees for these races are now 0.65% of total prize fund, a reduction of almost 30% for Group 2 races (€355) and 37.5% for Group 3 (€210).

There is an opportunity to enter a horse in a pattern race in between closing and supplementary for 2% of the prize fund and those second entries will close at the latest on the Tuesday of the week preceding the race. The exception is the three Group 2 races on Arc weekend, when the second entry closes on a Tuesday in mid-September.

The supplementary entry fee is the same as at Group 1 level, 7.2% of the prize fund. The exceptions here are the Arc, the Prix du Jockey Club and the Prix de Diane. There is also an opportunity for a second supplementary stage.

There is a penalty for withdrawing a runner after declaration. One recalls the high profile case of Fantastic Moon in last year’s Arc, when connections were anxious to withdraw due to the testing ground but opted to run as they would have taken a hit of 1.1% of the total prize pot without a veterinary certificate - €55,000.

Prize money was maintained at around €289m, with the breakdown shared equally – a third each between France Galop, owners via entry fees and sponsorship.

There is an Owners’ Pool, which stems from entry and supplementary entry fees in flat black-type races and 32% of money offered in Group 1 races is funded from this pool. It also finances the majority of any prize money increases.

When France Galop changed the entry conditions for Group 1 races by bringing entry dates forward and standardising the percentage of entry fees, it boosted the Owner’s Fund. This policy has been extended in 2025 to Group 2 and Group 3 races.

“Early entries are positioned at strategic dates so that a greater number of horses are entered in pattern races,” a spokesperson for France Galop’s race planning and programme department notes.

“In 2025, the changes made regarding the closing dates and entry fees in Group 3 and Group 2 races are part of an ongoing process started in 2024 in Group 1 races. The goal is to gain clarity for professionals about the entry process and its fee thanks to a greater consistency in the rules applied from Group 3 to Group 1 races.

“The money from entry fees goes straight back into all the prize money offered in pattern and listed races. This is an independent account which must never be in debit balance. We are very careful about that.”

Tim Donworth is an Irish trainer based in Chantilly and while acknowledging that early entries are a costly nuisance, he likes the system in his adopted country.

“In France, we have really good forfeiting systems for every race, not just the big races,” Donworth imparts. “So you have the right to forfeit out of the race at forfeit stage. Then we have a three-day declaration. Then you have a second forfeit stage the day after declaration.

“So we can play with the entries a lot more than you can in England and Ireland. We have visibility of who’s forfeited and who’s declared on the entry site with red circles and green circles. You can supplement into every single race in France so you can be a bit tactical with that. 

“You’re always afraid to get owners to cough up money and the horse ends up not being that good but it’s a risk you have to take for the Classic races in particular and it’s a system that does generate a lot of money.”

GENERAL COMMENTARY

Brian Kavanagh has an interesting perspective as the CEO of Curragh Racecourse. He was CEO of HRI for 20 years and is also a former chair of the European Pattern Committee and the European & Mediterranean Horseracing Federation.

“If the funding model was different, you would most likely have a shorter entry cycle and lower costs,” avers Kavanagh. “The ratings of Irish group races are generally strong and meet the standard required which suggests that the right horses are getting into the races. We are constantly looking at the ratings of our pattern races.

“Likewise, our average field sizes in Ireland are generally higher than France and Britain, which points to an entry system doing its job.

In Britain, Louise Norman is battling hard to improve the lot of her membership in light of some of the damning statistics related to prize money and costs. The ROA are leading on a project with the BHA in a strategic partnership around owner relations.

“We’ve got to evolve because we’re gonna get left behind, when you look at other sports,” says Norman.

“As part of our project with owner relations, we can show that the owners, through training fees, registration fees - forget the purchases; if you add those on top it would go into the billions – but you add all those other things up and it’s over £500m that owners contribute every year to British racing. They’re the biggest contributor of all.

“The modern owners now are very different to what they were 20 years ago, so we’ve got to be challenging the status quo. We’ve got to stop tweaking things, make real change.”

George Murphy is a front-of-house figure now in his father, John Murphy’s training operation, and indeed, was the one that sourced White Birch. Now owned by Chantal Consuelo Regalado-Gonzalez, the five-year-old has won half of his ten races, but frustratingly for connections, has not been able to make the track since beating Augustin Rodin with ease in the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at Curragh Racecourse last May.

Third in the Derby in 2023, the son of Ulysses has been an improver with age and with an ability to act on soft ground, would undoubtedly have been a major contender in the Arc last October, had he not been sidelined. And all those middle distance targets for older horses in Ireland, Britain and France would have been on his schedule. 

They still are and the entry fees will be paid again this year, as they were last season. But Murphy has no issue with that. 

It is a closing date for first entries of September 25 for an Irish 2000 Guineas, just as an example, that makes it difficult, if you are not in a money-no-object situation. Or even a June 25 cut-off point for the National Stakes, which is part of the Irish Champions Festival programme on September 14.

“It’s different with an established horse like White Birch,” says Murphy. “It’s easier to map out your plan.

“I think the big issue is more the two year old races, or the Guineas and Derby, for example. They’re very early. I think when you’re dealing with an older horse that’s proven at Group 1 level, they’ve generally won a lot of prize money, and it’s probably not as big of a deal to be early or to lose out on a few engagements.”

The Murphys have entries for Crosshaven and Plaza Athenee in both Irish Guineas, despite the pair having not yet been seen in public. 

“I suppose for an owner, a lot of the early entry fees are quite expensive, especially for two year olds, when you might have to make them before a horse has even run. That’s sometimes a tricky situation to explain. And you’re also taking a gamble that you think a horse is good enough. 

“You can be left with egg on your face if you have entered a horse you think is very smart. And vice versa too, if you didn’t enter one that was a little bit slower to mature. And then it gets very expensive to put them in.

“There’s no doubt those good races have to close earlier than a five-day entry, but months in advance is maybe a little bit extreme, I think, for the juvenile races and the early-season three-year-old races.”

Sales races can divide opinion. They are the one sphere, we are told by executives, where entry fee revenue can match or exceed the advertised prize fund.

Johnston is bemused by them: “ ‘Oh you’ve got a chance of winning a million next year by buying this yearling,’ it’s amazing how many fall for it, just like they fall for lottery tickets. But it’s very bad value overall. The odds are not good.”

On the other hand, Rod Millman, who at the time of writing was just three winners shy of the 900 landmark, is a fan, however. He credits sales races for keeping his Devon operation afloat and reports that owners are excited now about possessing that lottery ticket, regardless of the odds.

Millman has won the Super Sprint at Newbury twice, via Lord Kintyre in 1997 and Betty’s Hope in 2019, and picked up a lot of place money too, while also targeting other sales races fairly successfully.

“For a trainer like me - most of our horses are at the cheaper end of the bracket – you have lots of races that you can target them at. Obviously there’s the Super Sprint, which I’ve been very lucky in. You’ve also got the sales races at Newmarket, Fairyhouse, the Goffs races. There’s a chance of a big pay day and you’re selling the owner that dream of a cheap horse that could just make it.

“Betty’s Hope, we bought for three grand won the Super Sprint and there’s more stories like that for other people. It helps give the smaller trainer a leg-up. Lord Kintyre kept me in racing and Betty’s Hope gave me a nice pension pot!”

Kavanagh provides some stats which suggest that trainers are becoming slower to pull the trigger on making entries.

“One thing that has been noticeable in recent years is that trainers are being more careful with their entries,” Kavanagh reveals. “Average entries were 24.6 in 2019 with average runners at 11.8 per race. By 2024, while the average entries had reduced to 22.8, the field sizes had remained steady at 11.5 per race.

“This suggests that trainers are increasingly entering horses only when they intend to run, whereas previously there were more of what you might describe as “have a look” entries.”

SUMMATION

While chatting to us, Andrew Cooper wanted to acknowledge “the considerable financial contribution” made by owners via entry fees, and to thank them for it.

He emphasised that everything generated by entry fees went into prize money and also that this would continue to be the case while the current financial model persisted.

And this is the rub. This is the common, accepted situation that must improve. The failure of racing, compared to so many other sports, to create robust commercial partnerships.

In Britain, Project Pace has been set up by the industry, with a view to attracting a big marquee sponsorship for a group of elite flat races, similar to the Barclays and the Premier League for example, where the money is supposed to go in at the top and trickle down to other spheres.

It would be a start.