Are purses restraining growth?

By Caton Bredar

In 1953, the average cost of a Cola drink at a U.S. racetrack was around ten cents; the minimum bet on a race, two dollars. In 2007 the average cost of a Cola drink at a U.S. racetrack is around a dollar seventy-five; the cost of a bet, in most places, still two dollars.

In 1953 John Ward, Sr., a respected Midwest horse trainer charged $13 a day to train a racehorse.  That thirteen bucks covered labor, feed and daily care of your horse…costs which ran Ward around $11.34 a day. 

Flash forward to 2007.  Trainers based on major racing circuits in the Midwest or East will charge between $85 and $100 a day to train your racehorse.  Even at one hundred dollars a day, most trainers say their actual costs run significantly higher.  The cost of just about everything is up, with the exception of the minimum wager.  And while wagering in the US, the vehicle which drives purses, is up over-all, purses have, with a few exceptions, remained stagnate. 

For most trainers in the United States winning may not be everything.  But it is pretty much the only thing keeping them economically viable.  And in order to survive, regardless of what level they compete at, trainers almost have to win every time.

Ward’s son, John, Jr., reached the pinnacle of American racing in 2001 with a win from John Oxley’s Monarchos in the Kentucky Derby.  Today, Ward and Oxley, one of the more dynamic stables in the Midwest and East, continue to pare down that stable, from, at one point, as many as 200 horses to the 40 they now have either in Kentucky, Florida or New York.

“It’s a purging process,” Ward explains, “We’re trying to be cost effective while not lowering the quality of the stable…or of the care they receive.”  The fifth-generation horseman says the goal is a “leaner, meaner” racing operation, where the average earnings potential of each runner is realistically taken into consideration, in relationship to the costs that runner will incur.  According to Ward, it’s a business plan most trainers have failed to develop.  And even if they have, it’s a plan very difficult to put into practice given the economics of today’s game.
“It’s tough,” he offers.  “Most trainers train below their actual costs, in the hopes of getting better horses.” 

Ward lists rises in employment taxes—major adjustments in workman’s compensation insurance post September 11th as just one cost, often absorbed by the trainer, that has gone up significantly, particularly in the last five years. Ward’s annual workman’s compensation bill runs approximately $250,000 a year.  That, for a trainer who modestly describes himself as “middle of the road”, at least as far as the size of the stable goes.   For the newly ordained “Mega Trainers” trainers like Todd Pletcher or Doug O’Neil, who deal in high numbers of horses, Ward says those costs are even greater.

Some obvious costs, according to Ward, have gone up.  Over the past two years, with rising gas prices, feed and van companies have to pass their added costs on to their customers.  While shipping is often paid directly by the owners, trainers generally pay for feed directly then recoup some of that cost through their daily rates.  With higher prices due to fuel surcharges, they recoup less.

And trainers aren’t immune to higher gas prices.  “If you spend $25 to $30 a day in gas,” Ward explains, “and you train 30 horses, that’s $1 a horse,” or one less dollar a trainer actually makes on that horse, or puts toward his out of pocket costs.

Those costs--gas bills, cell phone bills, even rental rates, both in terms of housing the human help as well as housing horses—have all gone up over the past few years and are all costs Ward considers “hidden”, and most of the time, for trainers, unrecoverable.  While labor costs (with the exception of workman’s compensation insurance) have remained fairly consistent over the past few years, it’s those “little” things that have actually driven up the costs of training.

“It’s really hard on the trainer himself, and the organization he runs,” says Ward.  “It forces him to be taking away from the available cash flow.  On the other side of it, we haven’t had purses go up to be commensurate with the costs.  Purses have been stagnate for the last five to six years.  Trainers are caught in a squeeze.”

A slow, steady squeeze, it would appear.  To the point about purses, an NTRA Wagering Systems Task Force report, released in 2004, titles Chapter 2 “Handle Up, Revenue and Purses Down” and goes on to state, in part, “Handle Up, Purses Down is not a new occurrence specific to 2003.  In general, purses have not grown as fast as handle for more than a decade…”

The lack of parity, between purses and handle, can be attributed, in part, to the boom in off-track wagering.  Tracks receive a significantly lower percentage of revenue toward purses, from dollars wagered off-track than they do from live, on-track wagers.  The effect on purses, and therefore, trainers, is profound.
The report goes on to say that, from 1995 to 2003, total Thoroughbred handle grew by 45 percent, while total purses paid to horsemen grew only 38 percent.  In some particular cases, the statistics are even more dramatic.  According to statistics released by the Jockey Club, in 1995, the average available money per race for 63 days of racing at Gulfstream Park in South Florida, was $27,941.  Ten years later, in 2005, for 86 days of racing, that number went up less than $2,000, to $29,561. 

Gulfstream Park may be an extreme example; many tracks, such as Keeneland, Churchill Downs, or Saratoga in New York, posted gains over the ten-year period of at least $20,000 more available in average purse money per race.  Still, over the course of ten years, that’s just a gain of $2,000 per race per year—and that’s the best-case scenario, and not the case for every category of race.

It’s actually at the lower end of the scale, that Ward, the nephew of a Hall of Famer, believes it’s possible to remain economically viable. “The guys who are making the most,” states the 61-year-old, “are the claiming horse trainers.  They don’t have the big investment in the horses, they can drop horses in for a cheaper price, they can keep churning out starts, to keep commissions coming in.”  And in theory, adds Ward, “there may be fewer expenses connected to running a claiming horse operation, because generally, although not in every case, the size of the labor force is smaller”. 
 
Purses, of course, are smaller, too, but it’s the differential, Ward claims, you have to consider.  The difference in a trainer’s ten percent commission on a win in a $15,000 claiming race at most tracks is only a few hundred dollars at the most, less than his stake for a win in a $7,500 claiming race.  A claiming trainer, therefore, has more flexibility, and stands to make almost as much for a win in either case, as opposed to a trainer of higher caliber horses running almost exclusively in allowance races or stakes.

“The quality guys, the trainers who deal primarily in better-bred, or higher priced horses…” says Ward, “The trainers who take their time, give their horses a lot of time in between races, those trainers either have gone out or are going out of business, because it’s such an investment, and they’re losing money every day.”
Regardless of locale, Ward says the economics are the same.  “In Eastern circuits, you make more money, but it costs more to operate and live there.  The squeeze is there.  Midwest, California, it’s all the same.  The same hidden, overhead costs have been driven up everywhere.”

And the same applies to the Mega-trainers.  While the trend is to blame at least a portion of the racing industry’s woes, on trainer’s who appear to have the lion’s share of the horses…and the majority of the purses, Ward doesn’t believe they are immune to the economic disasters striking so many in these difficult times.
“While Mega Trainers, to some extent, can do what claiming trainers can do,” says Ward, “but they operate on a much larger scale, which, in turn, costs a lot more.  Think what Todd Pletcher’s workman’s comp runs.  Mega trainers will feel it, too.”

Ward, like many in racing, believes casino wagering could be at least be a help to the present financial plight of the trainer, and the sport itself.  Case in point, Mountaineer Park, who was on the brink of closing in 1994, when the state passed video lottery legislation.  In 1995, according to the Jockey Club statistics, Mountaineer was down to an average $2,886 available per race.  Average daily purse distribution at Mountaineer was 22,000 dollars and at nearby Charlestown, thirty-six thousand dollars a day.  By 2005, both tracks were giving out more than $100,000 a day.  At Mountaineer, in 2005, the average daily purse was up to $15,728, and that number is sure to be even higher for 2006.  Still, Ward believes casino wagering is not necessarily a pancea.

“The slots have helped Gulfstream so far, somewhat,” he reports, “But it’s been an interesting phenomenon.  They had a tremendous opening.  Now they’re starting to lose those crowds.  More and more people are going to the dog track, or the other facilities with casinos.  So it can only help so much, unless it’s controlled completely by the tracks and there’s no competition.  It’s looking like slots and racing have to go hand in hand.”   
A few fundamental problems, according to Ward, remain and, if not addressed, may jeproadize everyone’s stake in the game…not just trainers. 

“In 1945, a coke was a nickel and the game revolved around the $2 bettor.  It’s 2007, and everything costs at least twenty times more.  But racing is still chasing that two-dollar bettor.  By today’s standards, the minimum bet should be forty dollars.”

“Racetracks are taking more and more of the things they used to give in the past.  Instead of a fifty-fifty partnership, it’s at the very best, forty-sixty.”

If it costs $50,000 a year to train an allowance horse, that horse should have to earn a minimum of $65,000 in that year to pay his way.  Even at a day rate of fifty dollars a day, for a claiming horse, a $20,000 horse according to Ward has to win around $26,000 a year.  Given the current purse structure of tracks across the nation, Ward sees the situation as bleak.

“You’re seeing people go out of business, and I think you’re going to see more and more leave, as the cost breakdowns go up every month.  If trainers don’t charge according to what it costs, they’re going to go out of business.  If money is lost, you’ll lose owners.  As there are fewer owners, you’re going to lose trainers.  It’s a free-fall inside the business over the next few years.”

“If you don’t win a five million dollar race, you’re out in the cold.  And there’s a whole lot of people who don’t even ever run in a million dollar race.  My father made a dollar fifty a horse per day in 1953.  Today, most trainers are losing twice that every day just in costs.  It all goes back to the purses.”

What’s happening at Hialeah?

By Bill Heller

There is action on Hialeah in 2007. On e-bay. You can buy a Hialeah glass graced by a pink flamingo for $6.99. Flamingos are also depicted on Hialeah Park linen offered at $7.99. Or maybe you’d prefer three Hialeah post cards for $3.99.

Just when you think the situation could not get worse for this majestic racetrack deemed a National Historic Landmark before closing in 2001, it does. Last December, Hialeah stopped booking weddings and private parties, its principal business since racing ended, and began demolishing its 60-year-old barns, which were ravaged by Hurricane Wilma 16 months earlier.

Yet John Brunetti, who has owned Hialeah Park since 1977, hasn’t completely pulled the plug. “It’s not over yet, but I’m not going to spend an inordinate amount of time on it if it doesn’t work,” Brunetti said in mid-January. “We’ll just try to keep pursuing a plan for development, mixed use, commercial and residential.”

But the flamingoes will stay, as well they should. Hialeah, the Seminole word for pretty prairie, was officially designated a sanctuary for the American flamingo by the Audubon Society as the only reproducing colony in North America. “We still have 300 or 400,” Brunetti said. “They don’t want to leave, and if we develop the property we’ll still keep a flock here to preserve the history and the wonderful memories of this great facility.”

And it was a great facility, the winter capital of racing, for decades. 
“There was nothing better than Hialeah in the winter,” Hall of Fame trainer Allen Jerkens said. “You felt like you were in the best possible place for racing. It was a beautiful track.”

Few, if any, would argue that. The tree-lined entrance to the track; the 16th Century French Mediterranean architecture with vines of purple bougainvillea crawling on giant trellises all across the cream-colored walls; the Renaissance Revival Clubhouse; the grand staircases; two sensational fountains; the first turf course in the United States and the unique snapshot of Thoroughbreds racing against a backdrop of palm trees and flamingos combined to create a magnificent setting. “There was a great jockeys room and race secretary’s office, too,” Jerkens said. “And it was convenient. It was fun to stable there. It was fun to race there.”

Brunetti knows. “Certainly the magnificent turf course and main track we had really captivated horsemen,” he said. “The architecture, the layout of the facilities, the paddock, the box area and the expansive structures capped off by the flamingo colony made it a spectacular place to be at and to enjoy the sport of kings.”

Hialeah’s kingdom was predicated on exclusive winter or spring racing in South Florida from January through March or March through May depending on dates assigned by the Florida Legislature. When that changed in mid-2001, when the Florida Legislature decided to let Hialeah and its two nearby South Florida competitors, Gulfstream Park and Calder Race Course, set their own dates, Hialeah’s fate was sealed. Gulfstream Park and Calder both extended their meets and Hialeah was left with one single day of exclusivity for the entire year.

Hialeah could not compete with either of its two sister tracks head-to-head. “I think everyone knows we tried desperately,” Brunetti said. “There was nothing we could do about it.” Except close.

What a monumental loss. Hialeah not only was a gorgeous track to view, but one that was used by trainers for decades to unveil their most promising and precocious two-year-olds in three-furlong races as early as January. 
Seabiscuit, Round Table, Sword Dancer, Carry Back and Cicada all debuted in three-furlong baby races at Hialeah. 
Foolish Pleasure, Forego and Gold Beauty also made career debuts there in longer sprints. Seattle Slew, Conquistador Cielo and Alydar won their three-year-old debuts at Hialeah, and Kelso and Spectacular Bid won stakes there, Kelso taking the Seminole Handicap and Spectacular Bid winning the Grade 1 Flamingo Stakes by 12 lengths. Citation captured his first four starts as a three-year-old at Hialeah, an allowance race, the Seminole and Everglades Handicaps and the Flamingo Stakes, before winning the 1948 Triple Crown. He is honored at Hialeah with a statue behind the clubhouse. “That was the whole story from a historic point, what it meant for the development of horses,” Brunetti said.

Now Hialeah will develop condos, unless the possibility of adding slot machines induces a revival of Hialeah. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with slots, but we were not included because we had not run for several years,” Brunetti said. It wouldn’t have mattered. Voters in Broward County passed a referendum allowing slots at its racetrack, Gulfstream, where they are up and running this year. Voters in Dade County voted against slots for its two tracks, Calder and Hialeah.

Brunetti, though, won’t give up. “Because I love racing and I love Hialeah,” Brunetti said. “I’m not going to say it’s over until it’s over.”

It began in the early 1920s. Hialeah’s development from a swampland of 220 acres to a signature racetrack mirrored that of the City of Hialeah, which now numbers more than 220,000 citizens.Hialeah Park Racetrack was developed by James Bright, a cattleman from Missouri, and Glenn Curtiss, an aviation pioneer, in 1921. Bright and Curtiss donated the land for community use and helped acquire land and building funds for the construction of public buildings and facilities, including a racetrack. Thanks to Owen Smith, the inventor of the “Inanimate Hare Conveyor” known as the mechanical rabbit, the Miami Kennel Club opened the first greyhound pari-mutuel track in America at Hialeah in February, 1922.

Two years later, Joseph Smoot, Bright and Curtiss established the Miami Jockey Club and constructed a racetrack and grandstand adjacent to the greyhound track. Hialeah Racetrack opened on January 15th, 1925, boasting a clubhouse, administrative building, a paddock and 21 stables. Nearby, the first Miami fronton for jai alai opened. An amusement park featuring a roller coaster and a dance hall was also developed, creating a great destination for tourists. But the Great Hurricane of September, 1926, cost the racetrack complex its roller coaster, jai-alai fronton and dog kennels.

In 1930, the racetrack was purchased by Joseph Widener, who undertook a mammoth renovation. Working with architect Lester Geisler, Widener replaced the wooden grandstand and clubhouse with concrete and steel structures. The stables, paddock area, walking ring were redone, and hundreds of royal palms and coconut trees were planted. A lake was created within the track infield and hundreds of pink flamingoes were imported from Cuba. The first flock of flamingoes flew back to Cuba the very next night, but another flock was imported and their wings were clipped. They thrived at Hialeah on a diet of shrimp, rice, ground dog biscuits and carotene oil which kept their bodies pink - they are born a grayish white and turn pink as they mature.

The renovated Hialeah Racetrack re-opened on January 14th, 1932, just 19 days after Tropical Park, a renovated dog track, opened its doors.

Tropical Park competed with Hialeah head-to-head for years until after World War II when Tropical Park switched its dates to November through Hialeah’s annual opening in early January. When Calder Race Course opened in 1971, Tropical Park switched its dates to that track.

In 1933, Hialeah opened the first turf course in America. Special trains from Palm Beach brought in fans who debarked at a special station built by Seaboard Airline Railway, and Hialeah began carving its identity as “The Track That Made Miami Famous.” Its visitors included John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, General Omar Bradley, George Raft, Count Basie, Jimmy Durante and Joe Louis. James Bassett, the president and board chairman of Keeneland Race Course, called Hialeah “the jewel of Southern racing.”

Brunetti purchased Hialeah in 1977 from Eugene Mori, who had acquired the track from Widener’s family following his death in 1943. Brunetti will never forget the thrill of opening day that March 8th. “It was pandemonium, but it was so uplifting,” he said. “The excitement, the thrill, the people.”

Hialeah was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 2nd, 1979, and on January 12th, 1988, designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

But as the 1980s wove into the ‘90s, less and less people were coming to Hialeah, and Hialeah, Gulfstream and Calder engaged in what seemed to be an annual battle over dates, which were regulated by the Florida Legislature.

Hialeah couldn’t match Gulfstream Park’s figures when they raced on simultaneous dates from 1978 through 1987. In 1989, Hialeah went head-to-head for 27 days with Calder, which had a more accessible location just 10 miles from Hialeah. Hialeah averaged 2,447 fans and $208,490 in handle while Calder averaged 7,240 fans and a daily handle of $941,260.

Brunetti told reporters he was losing an estimated $68,000 a day competing with Calder.Yet Hialeah kept going. In 2000, Hialeah was allowed to hold its meeting at Gulfstream Park because of Hialeah’s poor track condition. When it was over, Gulfstream claimed Brunetti shortchanged the track.
Hialeah re-opened in 2001, and conducted racing through May 22nd, when a crowd of 3,280 watched the final day of racing there. Bugler Mike Ferrios played “Taps” to announce the arrival of horses on the track for the 10th and final race that day, captured by Cheeky Miss. “It was like going to a funeral,” Brunetti said.

Ironically, handle for the 2001 meet was a 17 percent increase from 1999, the last meet actually held at Hialeah. Track officials called the 2001 meet the best in Hialeah’s history.
Representative Rene Garcia, a Republican from Hialeah, tried unsuccessfully to pass an amendment which would have delayed the date of deregulation of the racetracks, which kicked in on July 1st, 2001. “I grew up around this track, and it not only means a lot to me, it means a lot to the people back home,” he said at the time. “This track is the gem of Dade County.”

It was until it closed. Hialeah’s ability to remain open for simulcasting was stripped because it had no live racing. Hialeah was finished. “Since that happened, everyone is saying, `What a shame,’” Brunetti said. “I keep telling people, `Where were you when we needed help?’ That goes to the horsemen, the patrons, the media. Everyone remembers how important Hialeah was.”

Jerkens does. He remembers how thrilled he was to be granted stalls for the prestigious Hialeah meet in 1952. “Most of the time before that we were stabled at Tropical Park,” he said. “Hialeah was all the big stables.”

Now Hialeah teeters on oblivion. Working in the track’s favor is that the zoning which would allow thousands of residential housing units to be built on the Hialeah site is not in place. Nor are the requisite regional approvals for large-scale retail development. And both the City of Hialeah and the state’s historic preservation boards have gone on record opposing massive retail development of the site.

So maybe there’s a faint chance of racing returning to the flamingoes.

“There’s always hope,” Brunetti said.

The European gambling scene – which way for horseracing?

The war is over: so said France Galop director general Louis Romanet a year ago, after he had put his name to a ground-breaking deal with British bookmakers Ladbrokes. For the first time, live pictures of all French races – Flat, jumps and trotting – were being made available to show in UK betting shops, via a new broadcasting service known as Ladbrokes Xtra. A unique, dedicated channel, Xtra is now in all Ladbrokes’ 2,140 shops in Britain and Ireland, and is there to provide extra – hence the name – opportunities for punters, over and above the traditional daily mix of horse and greyhound racing, virtual reality racing and numbers’ betting. Xtra needed product to make up its programme, and French racing was an obvious target, provided the old enmity between the parties could be overcome. The French racing and betting authorities have generally abhorred fixed-odds bookmakers for a century, ever since their like were driven out of the country by legislation that strengthened the national pool-betting monopoly. For their turn, Ladbrokes, which has a well established business in neighbouring Belgium, had engaged in court battles against the French for at least the past 20 years, seeking to break the mould so that it could take its product into fresh areas. Suddenly, peace had broken out between the two old adversaries. More specifically, pragmatism had prevailed. Ladbrokes needed betting opportunities to fill the gaps in its new service, and the French had them in abundance, even if the idea of putting money on the outcome of a trotting race still seemed slightly alien to UK viewers. On the other side of the counter, the French could see an opportunity to enhance its betting take, because as well as allowing for the delivery of live pictures, the deal enabled Ladbrokes to put bets straight into the PMU pools, for a fee, of course, which generally works out at three per cent of turnover to the host provider. One year on, the two sides are more than happy with the arrangement. Ladbrokes has a guaranteed product to put before its customers, and the French PMU has another source of income, as well as a useful driver for increased pools. Romanet says: “The arrangement is progressing well, better than we expected, and we have very good relations with Ladbrokes, which will grow. The more people that are part of the pool, the more interesting it becomes. “French racing is benefiting, and it is good for Ladbrokes, because with pool betting the bookmaker doesn’t mind which horse wins.This is a proper deal, worked out between the racing authority and the bookmaker on proper terms, which is very different from what other betting operators, such as the exchanges, have suggested. They came to us and said they would give us 0.25 per cent of turnover. We said No. We are not beggars.” So there we have it; the new enemy is revealed. The betting exchanges, with their low-margin operation that cuts into the traditional market, have taken the place of the British bookmaker as the bad guys. But the exchanges are not the only target, and nor is France – the Ladbrokes deal aside – the only European country taking a stand, though its policy towards private betting and gambling operators is considered among the most restrictive in Europe. The real storm has been whipped up by the pervasive phenomenon of the internet, which has turned the European gambling scene into a maelstrom. On one side are the state-controlled monopolies, generally making their money from lotteries and hanging on to their status for dear life under national law. On the other is the European Commission, steeling itself to intervene under EU legislation. And in the middle are the private betting operators, prodding governments into short-term legal action with the long-term aim of getting to the European Court of Justice, where they anticipate a wider, more liberal ruling. For betting operators, it may prove to be a case of taking two or more steps back before they can make a half-step forward, but if the mood among European Commissioners is any guide, they will get there, some day. In September, the internal market minister Charlie McCreevy took to nine – Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy and Sweden - the number of national governments against which the EC is opening infringement proceedings for restricting the provision of sports betting (including horseracing) and gambling services. The EC is following the line that under EU law countries can curb private gambling operators but only on grounds that are “non-discriminatory, proportionate and consistent”. A country cannot justify restrictions simply to protect its gambling or lottery monopoly, it says. Fellow commissioner Malcolm Harbour, who represents Britain, adds: “Member states cannot, on the one hand, incite and encourage people to participate in national lotteries, while at the same time invoking customer protection as a reason to suppress sports (and horserace) betting.” The testing ground for these views is being laid out even as some national governments continue to bear down on unwelcome betting operators, and as is the way with such issues, the workings of the law will grind away slowly, and expensively. Meanwhile, and perhaps ironically, two countries on McCreevy’s hit list – Germany and Italy – are moving towards deregulating their betting landscape from inside. Spain, too, is gently opening its arms to fresh possibilities, and emerging areas of eastern Europe will not be far behind. Major British-based bookmakers have worked out the angles, and, inevitably in view of their vast experience at putting on a fixed-odds show for their customers, they have made strategic alliances or are looking for individual representation. Stanley International, based in Liverpool, has been operating through agents in Italy for around five years. Its legal challenges have been an irritant for much of that time, but they have produced important legal decisions. Now Stanley is looking to advance through being awarded some of the 17,000 licences – 7,000 for sports betting shops and 10,000 for horserace betting – that are being opened up to commercial competition in Italy. In September, Ladbrokes paid €1.3m for a joint venture with local betting company Pianeta Scommesse and is promising to spend €100m over the next five years on a betting-shop project. “There is clearly unsatisfied demand in Italy,” says Ladbrokes chief executive Chris Bell. Gala Coral already operates in Italy through Eurobet and is bidding to expand, while William Hill can hardly afford to be left out, though its main thrust into Europe will be through Spain, which is moving towards a degree of sports-betting deregulation, and then Greece once it treads softly into liberalisation. Spain, which has new legislation on the stocks in three of the country’s 17 autonomous regions, is also the target for Betbull, a polyglot of an organisation, since it grew out of Austria, is based in Gibraltar and run by Simon Bold, who first made his name as a bookmaker in Liverpool. Bold says: “The Spanish retail market is immense, and will embrace the concept of sports betting in comfortable outlets that combine high-level technology with leisure and catering facilities”. So, where does all this to-and-fro activity leave horseracing? That’s the million-euro question for authorities running the business and individuals practicising within the pursuit, who see their rewards diminishing and wonder if, or how, they can hang on to the tail feathers of the golden goose of betting. Steve Fisher, British co-founder and director of Stan James Bookmakers, is as close as anyone to the central attractions. He was among the first to spot the potential of online betting, and has known days when his firm will offer nearly 400 separate markets on a multitude of sports, but he also supports horseracing to the hilt, including sponsoring both the Guineas on the Flat and the King George VI Chase over jumps. “Aside from lotteries, the gambling market in Europe is dominated by gaming – casinos and slot machines – and fixed odds can never compete for profitably per square metre,” he explains. “Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and Italy may be the dominant horseracing countries, but betting has to compete strongly with other sports, and horseracing is a minority activity even in such as Germany and Italy. Spain is a worry for any operator because it does not have a history of betting. Its gambling is based on lotteries, numbers, bingo and slot machines, so expansion will not happen overnight. In central and eastern Europe they predominantly bet on football and other sports, from basketball and cycling to darts and ice hockey, so these are also markets that do not instantly lend themselves to horserace betting. The point about sports betting is that most European countries bet on events in other countries, as well as their own. Taking horseracing into another country is not easy. It would be no good the UK, or anyone else for that matter, simply saying, ‘Here is our wonderful horseracing, you must have it.’ To betting people in most other countries it’s just another horserace, and there is a huge barrier if the commentary is in a foreign language and the odds are not up to date.” Gloomy for horseracing, or what? Fisher sees the picture as it is. “I have a betting shop in Moscow, using the latest Finsoft software to provide a Russian translation, and we show virtual horse and greyhound racing every five minutes,” he says. “No live racing, because I cannot get the pictures. But even if I could get live racing, I’m not sure how much interest there would be. If I was marketing a betting product to eastern Europe, for example, I would have more success with a virtual greyhound race than a live horse race. It’s easier for customers to understand. Of course, I want to be enterprising, and am keen to promote horseracing. But you would need a lot of co-operation from everybody, and that includes pricing. Horseracing should not think there is lots of money to be made out of its product, because that is not the case. And that’s not pessimism. It’s realism.”

Declaration time – anomalies around the world

JUST when I thought that things in the administrative world could not get any worse, they did, though it took a trip to South Africa to discover the elements of an entry and declaration system that, at face value, makes any problems faced by European racehorse owners and trainers look like a little local difficulty.

Having researched the major European racing nations, and thrown in a smattering of the topmost events in North America, Asia and Australia, I thought I had a handle on where the best and worst value was to be had, from an entry and declaration perspective.

Then I met Mike Wankling, who recently relocated from Singapore to his native South Africa to take up the newly created post as manager of handicapping and race planning for the country’s National Horseracing Authority.

“You think there are some early closers around the world, but what about having most of the biggest races wrapped up ten days ahead of the race,” he says. That’s everything done: final declarations, jockeys and draw, the lot. And that’s for the whole programme, usually of eight races, on the particular big-raceday.

“We have about ten big days around the country, and every one has an early declaration for the entire card,” Wankling explains. “The only reason for a horse to be withdrawn after that stage is on veterinary grounds, and perhaps surprisingly we have very few of those. Maybe it’s because the horse can’t then run for a period of 14 days, except with the stewards’ permission.

“I’ve heard the complaints from British trainers, about changes to the going, over the proposed introduction of 48-hour declarations, but we don’t have a culture of people taking out their horses over ground conditions in South Africa.”

With race conditions for major handicaps that allow Wankling to add discretionary weight penalties for winners – but not for other horses that might show improved form – he is happy with his part of the bargain. But while he accepts the need to market and promote the big events, he is not happy with such a length of time between declaration and race day.

“In Hong Kong, for instance, they declare on the Thursday for their international races on the Sunday,” he says. “In Singapore they do the same for the Singapore Airlines Cup, and having declared in the morning, they print the race cards, with owners’ colours, by four o’clock in the afternoon. I’d certainly like to see us cut down the declaration time in South Africa.”

Strange as it may seem, the reason for South Africa’s uncommonly early system for major events can be traced to the country’s printing industry, though the original decision was taken back in the 1970s, with the introduction of exotic bets such as the four-race jackpot.

Derek Wiid, now business development executive for South Africa’s racing and betting company Phumelela, recalls the time when jockeys were not declared until the day of racing, and punters would laboriously enter the names against horses that had been declared two days previously.

Wiid explains: “When the exotic bets were brought in, punters objected to the late changes. They said they wanted extra time to think about their bets, because they were more difficult than straight win bets. So that began the process for earlier declarations.”

However, the big driver came from the demands of the printing and distribution business, which still also explains why South Africa’s everyday races are declared on Tuesdays (for racing on the following Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday) and Thursdays (for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday hence), to produce an array of time lapses that vary between three and seven days.

The relevant information about runners, draw and jockeys is generated by the National Racing Bureau, which takes entries in the way that Weatherbys does in Britain and France-Galop in France, for publication in the official race card and the main form guide, Computaform.

Without a very early declaration stage, it would be impossible to get the information to punters, on and off course, in time to generate appropriate levels of betting turnover, Wiid says.

He explains: “Both Computaform and the race card have small print runs, which are handled individually in each city for racing in Johannesburg and Durban, and sent between the two, which is a five-hour journey by car, while Cape Town does its own printing, and sends them eight hours to the other main cities.

“But on top of that, we have to send the race books from Johannesburg to the rest of Gauteng province, which can be 350km away on difficult farm roads. Distribution is a nightmare.”

The form guide might be Computaform, but transmission and distribution of the printed word has yet to reach the computer age in South Africa – and several other places around the world, come to that.

North America might have had men on the moon, and the declaration system is the shortest on the planet – usually 48 or 72 hours from entry to race, as individual racing secretaries ring trainers to fill races and write substitute events if the original comes up short - but US race fans generally have to go to the track to pick up copies of Daily Racing Form, so vast is the distribution area.

At the other end of the entry and declaration spectrum is Scandinavia, which has much less racing than South Africa, but Norway and Sweden still get their full lists of runners, riders and draw in the bag six days before racing, so that race cards can be printed and distributed to faraway places in good time for punters to pore over their exotic bets.

Denmark manages to get by on a five-day declaration system, but throughout Scandinavia there are generally only a minimal number of absentees from the published cards.

Elsewhere, among the main racing nations of Europe, the time-lag between entry, declaration and running is usually shorter, except – and there always seem to be an exception in this topic – for Group and Listed races.

Yet there are as many systems as there are countries, and the reasons for the differences are often more to do with working practice within the relevant racing authority than practicality within the racing community.

Outside the Pattern system – but sometimes within it – Britain revolves round a five-day entry system, which, like most changes now taken for granted, caused consternation and furore among the training fraternity when it was introduced.

But – yes, there has to be a but – entries for races on Fridays and Sundays are made six days ahead, because Weatherbys only takes overnight declarations on a Sunday, so entries for Friday racing are made the previous Saturday, and Sunday racing involves a 48-hour declaration stage, so entries are made on a Monday.

Weatherbys takes no entries on Tuesdays or Sundays. On the other hand, the Irish Turf Club office is closed on a Saturday, takes no entries on a Sunday, and runs an entry system covering four, five and six days.

As for declarations, British owners, trainers and punters have had to keep on their toes. The general overnight declaration stage, which enables the runners, riders and draw to be printed in newspapers on the day of racing, has been gradually extended to 48 hours for Group 1 races, Sunday race meetings, all-weather track racing during the winter period, and some of the major handicaps, such as the Grand National.

Group 1 races, Sundays and ‘heritage’ handicaps were brought forward to provide extra time for marketing and promotion, either through the media or by way of ante-post betting.

But all this could soon be academic, if Britain introduces a universal 48-hour declaration from July 1, as has been accepted in principle. Universal, that is, for Flat racing. Jump racing will be the exception. There had to be an exception.

France does things differently. France takes no entries on a Saturday or a Sunday, which means the entry cycle varies between seven, eight and nine days. However, there is a 72-hour declaration stage, followed by a 48-hour cancellation, which enables Paris-Turf to print the French race cards at all manner of times through the week, to the confusion of those infrequent overseas visitors used to seeing the day’s events laid out before them.

Germany does things even more differently than Britain, Ireland and France, since it runs a five-day declaration system, with a four-day cancellation stage that produces the final fields.

However, the Direktorium operates a very strict entry system – all regular races close on a Tuesday, so that its official racing calendar can be printed the same day, even though it is dated two days later. Very easy to remember, but it does produce a variable period from entry to race day of between eight and 14 days.

Of course, that’s not counting Group and Listed anomalies piled on normal anomalies, such as Cologne’s Winterfavoriten for two-year-olds, which will be run late this autumn for horses entered in November 2005, and a Krafeld juvenile race that closed in March for a September renewal. The racecourses and the Direktorium make the rules.

And so to Italy, which has taken the single-day entry stage to even greater lengths than Germany. Italy’s chosen day of the week is Thursday, when there is generally no racing.

This means that the time-lag between putting a horse into a race and getting it to the races, after the universal 48-hour declaration, can be as short as nine days and as long as 15. Why? Please ask UNIRE, though history suggests that the answer may not be immediately forthcoming.

As if this catalogue of differences is not confusing enough, no mention has yet been made of supplementary entries and the Pattern-race system, which throws up a myriad of dates, as some countries seek to boost prize-money from early cash contributions from breeders and owners, and others strive to bring entry as close as possible to the day of racing, so as to ensure that the best possible field gathers.

Mindblowing is a word that comes to mind, especially when you factor in the need to verify entries, which means that Irish horses running in Britain have to be notified a day ahead of the home contingent, and vice versa, and that France-Galop asks for details of intended runners from overseas to be dispatched to the Paris HQ eight days before entry, so that the information can be loaded on to the main database and race weights checked.

Mindblowing, that is, until you speak to James Fry, who heads the trainers’ service at the International Racing Bureau in Newmarket.

The IRB and Weatherbys are authorised to take and make entries from Britain, but the commercial enterprise that Fry oversees has the added value of leading their clients by the hand through the minefield of entry and declaration, with a service of going reports and form guides generally pointing clients farther in the right direction.

How does Fry cope with the plethora of variations on a theme?

“I keep it up here,” he says, knowingly, tapping the back of his head. “I always try to instil self discipline. I start a job and will see it through. Perhaps I don’t delegate enough, but it comes from years and years of practice, though I still wake up in the middle of the night and think, ‘Did I do that?’ or ‘I must remember to do that tomorrow.’

“We get a lot of help from the trainers and particularly their secretaries. Some of them leave things a little late, but that’s why the clock in the office is always five minutes fast!”

So that’s the secret, which explains why former trainer Toby Balding sums up: “Weatherbys and the IRB do a great job, if you leave it to them.

“The people who get into trouble are usually the ones who try to do overseas entries and declarations themselves, and don’t read the small print.”

Postcard from Senonnes, the training track near Nantes and Angers

Situated in France in the Mayenne region (not far from Nantes and Angers), Senonnes is a training centre in full development. There are 24 trainers and 450 horses. Some horses you may know have been trained here, for example: - Kauto Star (trained by Serge Foucher) he won 2 Group 3 races in Auteuil in 2004 (Prix Jacques d’Indy and Prix de Longchamp) and was placed in other group races (2nd in the Prix Cambaceres, 5th in the Pepinvast and 3rd in the Prix Amadou) before it was sold in England;

- Trésor de Mai (trained by Laurent Viel) he won 4 steeple-chases and was placed 3 times (5th in Auteuil in 1998 in Prix  Bayonnet) before leaving for England.

The training centre as it is now opened in 2001. It was the idea of a trainer (C Rouget), who is the vice-president of the trainers’ association) and of the ex-President of Senonnes racecourse (H Malard) and of a local politician (J Beline). It is nowadays directed by an associative structure of voluntary workers (the CERGO), this consisted of 4 persons (G Nicol being the president); 2 people maintain the tracks permanently.

The centre was constructed for both flat and jumps trainers. The 40 hectare site includes, a 2200 m deep sand track, 2 lighter sand tracks of 2000 meters and a 2100 meter grass gallop. There is also a round schooling ground on the sand (1000 meters), which includes 8 hurdles on the inside and 8 steeple-chase fences on the outside. Fences include an oxer, a brook, a wall, an English fence, a bullfinch hurdle as well as cross-country jumps on the grass. 
Trainers can also use several canters, a trotting track, an arena (4 hurdles) and starting gates.

The geographic situation of Senonnes is very good because there are over 50 racecourses within a 100km radius and the area has excellent motorway links. Paris is just 3 hours away. If we travel a horse to a France Galop course, they will even reimburse some of our transport costs!

The local economic environment is also interesting with banks and bookkeepers nearby, a very good veterinary clinic (at Meslay-du-Maine), as well as several apprentice-jockey schools. We are well catered for our supplies as we have many local farmer-producers who sell us straw, hay, oat at very reasonable rates. All the trainers at the centre get on well together and help each other.

Whilst our centre might not be the same as some of the bigger centres outside Paris it offers trainers the opportunity to train horses without the higher costs of training at a large centre.

Are the six newly upgraded Group One races for fillies and mares in Europe worthy of their status?

Well that is too soon to say, but there is a significant difference between the newly upgraded “f&m” events and how other races that have earned Group One status over the years. The key word is “earned” of course, as a race cannot, under normal circumstances, be upgraded unless it has earned it through attracting high quality fields.

Still, the upgrading of six races to Group One in 2004, was triggered mainly by the wish to improve opportunities for fillies and mares. Such a factor would almost certainly not be allowed much emphasis in discussions concerning upgrading races for males. Ruth Quinn, racing director at the British Horseracing Board, said at the time: “I am delighted to be able to announce these considerable improvements to the race program for fillies and mares. We want to offer every encouragement to fillies to extend their racing careers in Britain”.

What Quinn was actually saying, between the lines, was that the BHB were anxious to stop the export of potentially high class broodmares to the US, where better purses and black type opportunities in Graded handicaps make it more viable to continue a filly’s racing career before retiring her to the paddocks. So, two years ago, Europe offered a greatly improved program for fillies and mares aged three and up, including these new Group One races: Falmouth Stakes 1 mile (England) Sun Chariot Stakes 1 mile (England) Matron Stakes 1 mile (England) Pretty Polly Stakes1 1/4 miles (Ireland) Prix d’Astarte 1600 metres (France) Premio Lydia Tesio 2000 metres (Italy) Interestingly, these six were also the only races upgraded to Group One status that year.

How far off having earned the status were some of these new championship “f&m” races? The two in England are perhaps the two strongest and, as it has been won by stars like Sonic Lady and Al Bahatri, many would argue that the Falmouth Stakes was long overdue its upgrading. But the year before being staged as a Group One for the first time it was won by Macadamia – who had won the Royal Hunt Cup off handicap mark 93 three weeks earlier. She was improving of course, and two starts later she ran second in another Group Two, the Sun Chariot Stakes. That day, she was chasing Echoes in Eternity – who had not even been given the mark 100 by the BHB handicapper for her Listed win at Yarmouth just over two weeks earlier.

At the time, many would argue that these were weak Group Two events. Twelve months later they both held Group One status, as the European Pattern program underwent some major changes: - 23 new Group races were introduced, 21 as Group 3 events and four as Group 2 events. - 17 of the 23 races were restricted to fillies and mares aged three and up (three were for juvenile fillies). - 17 Group races were upgraded. Six races went up to Group One status, ten races went up to G2 status and one race went up to G3 status. - 11 of the 17 races were restricted to fillies and mares aged three and up (two were for juvenile fillies). Excluding the juvenile races, no fewer than 28 of a total of 40 new / upgraded races were contests restricted to fillies or fillies and mares. It is also interesting to note that, despite having given 40 races an elevated status, the European Pattern Committee downgraded only six events.

The Pattern Book had either been, or become, imbalanced. After such a shake-up in 2004, it was no surprise when only minor changes were made prior to the 2005 season. Four races were upgraded and two races were downgraded that year, including the Prix Lupin (a previous Group One race which was withdrawn from the pattern to allow the French Derby to be run at 2100 metres). Over the two-year period, no other race was downgraded from Group One status.

Is the European Pattern Committee gambling when upgrading as many as six fillies & mare races to Group One with one throw of the dice? Not if enough owners decide to keep top class fillies in training. They are the ones taking the financial gamble and, as one is striving to see fillies that have already won in Group One company stay in training, purses play a crucial role. The lure of prize money must not only outweigh the lure of a sale of the filly, or a sale of her first yearling, it must also be big enough to over-shadow the risk factors involved in keeping a valuable filly in training. Funds were added, as the Falmouth and the Sun Chariot both jumped up from £58,000 to £116,000 in value when being upgraded. That was the financial reward as Attraction took the first Sun Chariot Stakes carrying Group One status. Two weeks later the mare Chorist picked up £81,576 for finishing second to Haafhd in the Champion Stakes (Gp1) – where she was the only female runner. She had earned just shy of £110,000 when beating her own sex in the Pretty Polly Stakes (G1) at the Curragh earlier in the season. Chorist’s second in the Champion probably enhanced her broodmare value more than what was the case for Attraction when she won the Sun Chariot. This simply because Attraction had already won three Group One races. When a filly with such an impressive CV stays in training, one has to say that the enhanced program has already given positive results.

Though what will the enhanced program achieve in the long run? Will it make more and more Group One winners stay in training, or will it simply create more (party sub-standard) Group One winners? The big breeding operations, with Juddmonte at the forefront, will never stop sending numerous fillies to continue their racing careers North America, and a filly like Attraction – owned by the Duke Of Roxburghe – would never be exported in any case. In the 2004 Sun Chariot, Attraction beat Chic and Nebraska Tornado, giving the race the look of a solid Group One. Last year’s edition was won by Peeress, who beat Sumitville and Musicanna. That was hardly a genuine Group One finish but it is too soon to assess the success or failure of the upgrading this event.

Overall, the new Group One races seem to have got off to an adequate start. The continuation is perhaps more important. Will they all be deserving continued Group One status in about five years’ time? And if not, how difficult will it be for the Pattern Committee to downgrade one or two of them? Such a move will probably very difficult. Racecourses, trainers, owners and breeders combine for rather a formidable pressure group, and they will all be interested in keeping these races at Group One status. Even if they should become numerically strong enough to be self-destructing quality-wise, producing below par championship races, and in turn produce below par Group One winning broodmares.

A total of 85 Group One races were staged in Europe last year. 19 of these were races restricted to fillies (for 3-year-olds or 3-year-olds plus). In other words, 22.35% of all Group One races are for the fairer sex only. These are races that give the girls protection from competition with males. It is easy to see how the decision to upgrade six such events was a major change. Nevertheless, fillies and mares who race exclusively in their own division are still not offered anything as big a slice of the cake as they are in USA. North American racing has long had a lucrative program for fillies and mares. The US racing circuit will be staging 104 Grade One races in 2006, of which 39 are restricted to fillies and mares (excluding those for juveniles). This means that 37.5% of all Grade One events are “f&m” races and, not surprisingly, a great number of female runners stay in training well past their 3-year-old season. What it also means, however, is that US trained fillies and mares are rarely seen competing with males at Grade One level.

This is a feature that has always played an excellent role on the vivid and colourful stage called European horseracing. The true championship races should always involve clashes of sexes, as well as clashes of generations. If the increase in upgrading of European Pattern races restricted to fillies of mares continues, clashes of sexes may well be a rarity. If not a thing of the past altogether. An ‘Arc’ or a ‘Jacques le Marois’ without a top filly involved would not be quite the same, would it? It would not be as competitive. Many will argue that this would be a small price to pay, in return for seeing more top older fillies in training over a period of two to three years.

Maybe so, but more Group One races will always mean more sub-standard Group One races. And increasing top level opportunities for fillies and mares will have a knock on effect also on some of the established Group One events open to both sexes. The Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes are not likely to be vulnerable in the foreseeable future, though races like the Prix d’Ispahan, Sussex Stakes, Preis von Europa and Champion Stakes could easily lose some big players of the fairer sex. Many of them will be campaigned exclusively in “f&m” races. So, without throwing out an unnecessarily early opinion on these new developments, perhaps one can offer this (provisional) theory: Giving the filly & mare division significantly increased protection can have positive effects, but overdo it, and negative side-effects will be part of the bargain.

International news round up - stories from the world of racing

Kempton Park will become England’s fourth “all weather” venue when racing returns to the right-handed Sunbury oval on Saturday March 25th. Over £18.8 million has been spent on converting the track to a floodlit facility, which will also continue to stage National Hunt racing.

Money has been spent on upgrading stabling and on a new sampling and veterinary unit, which will offer some of the best treatment facilities available.

The flat turf course has been replaced with a Polytrack, which will race similar to the surface installed at nearby Lingfield Park. Kempton will stage a new mile series which will culminate in a £100,000 final in early September. The two group three and five listed races which were staged on the old turf course will all be run on the new surface.

At Lingfield Park two group three races will be run on the Polytrack surface this year. The Winter Derby in March (upgraded from Listed) and the Silver Trophy in June. A new Listed Race (River Eden Stakes) will join the Fluer de Lys Stakes (Listed) to be run on the Polytrack surface on October 21st.

Redcar break new ground this spring and will stage the first big turf handicap, the William Hill Lincoln – transferred from Doncaster, which is closed for redevelopment. This summer, they will stage a new £50,000 mid-summer sprint. The Class 2 event, restricted to three-year-olds, will be staged on Sunday, July 23rd and follows the other major summer races for second season sprinters at York in June and Newmarket’s July festival.

The totepool Two-Year-Old Trophy in the autumn will be worth in excess of £200,000.

Winters in Norway are often harsh and the 2006 one has been no exception. However, trainers at Ovrevoll racecourse have been able to keep their horses in full training throughout the winter as the dirt track was renewed last autumn. The new track is sand based and is regularly salted and harrowed through the night. Temperatures have dipped as low as minus 20c but the track has been in full use by first light.

Figures released by Horse Racing Ireland at the end of 2005 showed an increase in on course betting and Tote turnover. As a result, prize money is expecting to rise to roughly €56 million during 2006.

The Turf Club have revealed that retired Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Ronan Keane, and former Attorney General, Eoghan Fitzsimons SC, are to head a new appeals body for Irish racing. The appeals body began on February 1st and will rule on matters such as; doping offences, jockey suspensions and careless riding.

In France Pari Mutuel Urbain (the tote operator PMU) saw a 6% rise in revenue in 2005 to €8 billion from €7.4 billion in 2004. The 2005 figure beat a forecast gain of 5% and marked a 30% increase over the last four years. The PMU is the largest off track betting operator in Europe and has recently signed a deal with Ladbrokes to take promote French racing throughout the UK. Much of the increase in revenue can be attributed to legal internet gambling which produced €250 million sales in 2005.

In Italy, unlicensed offshore internet gambling was effectively outlawed at the end of February with the Italian government enforcing a law that will oblige internet providers to block access to unlicensed betting operators. The ban will be welcomed by many in the Italian racing industry as it will force overseas operators to be licensed and pay a percentage of revenue back to the state betting operator, which will undoubtedly increase prize money.

The Cyprus parliament is waiting for a new bill to be presented this spring, which deals with taxation on horseracing and electronic bets. Whilst the exact content of the bill has yet to be realised, it is expected to contain reference to a remodelling of betting laws along the lines of the British fixed odds betting. The concern for the industry is that if a move away from pool betting is accepted, it will have a detrimental effect on prize money.

American racecourses have announced a raft of enhancements to their stakes schedules this year, which will be of interest to European trainers. Notable revisions include the increase in purses at Colonial Downs where their two feature turf races, The Colonial Turf Cup and The Virginia Derby (Gr. II) have both had their purses increased to $1m. The races form the first two legs of the $5m Jacobs Investments Grand Slam of Grass, a four-race series for three-year-olds on the turf. Hollywood Park have added the CashCall Mile (Gr. III), formerly run as the Royal Heroine Stakes, for fillies and mares, 3-years and up, and will be run on Saturday, July 1. The American Oaks (Gr. I), at 1 1/4 miles, is scheduled for Sunday, July 2. Both races are invitational turf events and will each carry $750,000 purses. At Calder Racecourse in Florida, the inaugural running of the Bob Umphrey Turf Marathon will take place on July 22nd. The two mile event will carry a purse of $250,000 and will be the longest flat stakes race run in North America this year. The race is named in honour of the former racing secretary who died in early January. Calder will also stage two five furlong $250,000 ungraded stakes races on August 5th. Track executives are keen to encourage international participation for all their key races this year and will soon be announcing travel incentives for horses who fly direct to Miami International Airport where new quarantine facilities are now in place.

The Lone Star phenomenon - built for big things

Maybe it’s because of the long, flat stretches of landscape that, when shimmering in the summer heat, have potential for mirage. Or maybe it’s just the capacious grandeur of a land vast as imagination. But whatever the reason, Texas always has inspired dreams and ideas so big and robust they couldn’t sit comfortably anywhere else.

To attempt anything on a small scale here is an insult to Texas heritage. And back in the mid-1990s, when developers and racing executives were planning a new racetrack for the Dallas area, a racetrack that was to be the jewel of Texas’ inchoate racing industry, they invested their plans with the dream of some day hosting the sport’s championship event. Everything was planned and created with the Breeders’ Cup championships in mind, recalled Corey Johnsen, the first general manager of Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie. Everything was built so that it could be stretched or expanded when necessary to Breeders’ Cup proportions.

And on October 30th 2004, in only its eighth season, Lone Star will become the youngest racetrack ever to be host to, as it’s now called, the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships. The eight races worth at least $14 million typically attract the most accomplished racehorses in North America, as well as many of the best from Europe. This year the Breeders’ Cup will take its excellence and its pageantry and its enduring significance to a new region, specifically to Grand Prairie, Texas.

But don’t misunderstand. Grand Prairie isn’t a hiccup of a town in a Larry McMurtry novel; it’s a fast-growing city in the geographic centre of a metropolitan area of five million people. To the east, about 12 miles distant, the Dallas skyline is visible from the upper levels of the Lone Star grandstand. A few miles west, near one of the nation’s most famous amusement parks, the Ballpark in Arlington is home to Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers. A little farther west sits Fort Worth, which claims to be the only city that owns a herd of longhorn steers, and who would dispute it? Here the West is said to begin. And about 10 miles north of Lone Star Park, the Dallas Cowboys, who have won more Super Bowls than any team in the history of professional football, pursue yet another while playing at Texas Stadium.

In the sports world Texas is probably best known for football and in the general awareness for cowboys of all sorts. But, again, don’t misunderstand. This country, tamed on horseback, was made for horse racing; both the sport and the region have a prodigious capacity for inspiring dreams. And indeed Texas has a rich, if disjointed, history of racing.

In the mid-1930s, Arlington Downs, located about where The Ballpark in Arlington now stands, was one of the most successful racetracks in America. Crowds of 30,000 filled the grandstand on weekends. Newspapers of the time speak of dignitaries from around the world attending Arlington Downs. In 1937, Ben Jones topped the trainers’ standings. Jones, of course, went on to win six Kentucky Derbies, the first in 1938 with Lawrin, who had raced at Arlington Down the previous season. Racetracks also prospered in Houston and San Antonio.

If politicians hadn’t intervened, Texas quite possibly would have become the horse racing capital of North America. But the state’s racing industry instead became the victim of an acrimonious political dispute. In 1938 it was banned in the state. And so for the next 50 years, Texans simply raced elsewhere. 
 In 1946, as America and indeed the world recovered from an epidemic hostility, a Texas-bred racehorse named Assault supplied the raw material for hope and myth. He was raw-boned and deformed, and he had the most unlikely provenance. Yet with a sweep of the Triple Crown, the little chestnut known as the "clubfooted comet" became a prominent character in the eternally appealing story of determination's triumph.
 And for Texans, he was much more; he was their representative.
"The victory of Assault in the Kentucky Derby," wrote an editorialist of the time, "is but one example, if example is needed, that this great southwestern section of America is on the march and will be heard from in increasing proportions in every phase of American activity, and none more strongly than in the field of the horse."Assault was bred, born and raised on a vast expanse once called the "Wild Horse Desert" but later famous as the King Ranch. When he was a weanling, he stepped on a surveyor's spike. It ran through the frog, of the right 
front foot and out the hoof wall. The injury left the foot deformed and the horse crippled.
And so even years later Assault walked with a conspicuous limp and would sometimes stumble and fall when going to the racetrack. But once there, he ran 
with surprising grace and efficiency and, most of all, courage. Perhaps that was the source of his charisma. Overcoming his misfortune and his lameness to become 
the seventh horse ever to win the Triple Crown, he became a popular hero and for many an embodiment of courageous spirit.
After the Triple Crown, Assault was "the main topic" of conversation throughout Texas, according to a contemporary newspaper account. So popular was he that his 
admirers developed "some fantastic schemes" to satisfy "the public's clamor" and allow "the rank and file of Texans who were not able to witness the 3-year-old 
in action . . . to catch a glimpse" of him.

People petitioned Gov. Coke Stevenson to issue a proclamation honouring Assault and making his jockey, New York native Warren Mehrtens, an honorary Texan. 
Sentiment grew for returning horse racing to the state. There was even a plan to raise $100,000 for "a special race, without betting, of course," intended to attract Assault.
 "Everybody knew about Assault," remembered Monte Moncrief, who at the time was a Texas A&M student but who later became the King Ranch veterinarian. "We were highly proud. Just as Dallas is proud of the Cowboys, Texas was proud of Assault. . . . When Assault won the Triple Crown, it was like Joe Louis beating Max Schmeling."
 Yes, although no horses raced in Texas for more than 50 years – not with legal betting anyway – the state still can boast of a rich racing history that’s fraught with achievement. But most Texans, such as Hall of Fame jockeys Bill Shoemaker and Jerry Bailey and Hall of Fame trainer Max Hirsch, had to leave the state to pursue their racing careers.
Even without racing at home, Texans remained prominent in the sport, developing successful breeding farms in Kentucky and campaigning stakes winners from New York to California and from Ascot to Chantilly. Throughout the 1980s, racetracks in neighbouring states, such as Louisiana Downs and Oaklawn Park, prospered in part because of the many Texans that regularly travelled three-to-six hours to attend the races.

Racing returns

Then in 1987, the state’s politicians, who for 50 years had kept the sport underfoot, finally turned the issue over to the voters, who in a statewide referendum overwhelmingly welcomed horse racing back to Texas.
Problems persisted, however. The Texas Racing Commission, which regulates the sport in the state, could have produced a new translation of the Bible in less time than it took to write the state’s rules of racing. An onerous pari-mutuel tax virtually precluded the substantial investment necessary to develop any large racetrack, and so the first racetracks to open in Texas during this modern period were insignificant.

 Once the tax was lowered, the Commission dragged its tentative feet in awarding licenses. The Dallas area was a proven market for the sport, having supplied about 50 percent of the attendance at nearby Louisiana Downs for years. A Dallas racetrack was destined to stand at the centre of the state’s racing industry. But the Commission put off awarding a license in the Dallas area, deciding first to license racetracks in Houston and then San Antonio.

 Finally, the Commission awarded the coveted Dallas area license to Lone Star Park over three other applicants. The citizens of Grand Prairie had voted for a half-cent sales tax to help finance the $100 million Lone Star project. Nevertheless, as the new racetracks in Houston and San Antonio struggled, Lone Star developers met with considerable scepticism from banks asked to provide additional financing. But in 1995, famed real estate developer Trammell Crown and his son Harlan injected $10 million into the project. The state’s horsemen pledged another $5 million. And the dirt soon began flying at the Lone Star site.

 On a Thursday afternoon in April of 1997, 60 years after the closing of Arlington Downs, a crowd of 21,754 filled Lone Star’s Spanish baroque grandstand and welcomed major league racing back to North Texas. A couple days later, Bob Baffert, the leading trainer in the nation, saddled the winners of two stakes races, Anet in the Lone Star Derby and Isitingood in the Texas Mile. Skip Away, who finished third in the inaugural Texas Mile, would go on to become Horse of the Year.

 For its first season, Lone Star averaged nearly 10,000 in daily attendance. The average daily handle of $2.39 million was a record for an inaugural season by any North American racetrack built since 1970. No little house on the prairie, it immediately became the success story many had anticipated for decades; it became, in other words, the racetrack Texans had envisioned when they voted in 1987 to bring racing back to the state.

 Since then, most, if not all, of the nation’s leading jockeys have competed at Lone Star, many of them in the annual National Thoroughbred Racing Association All-Star Jockey Championship. And the nation’s leading trainers – such as Bobby Frankel, Bill Mott, Richard Mandella, Todd Pletcher and Steve Asmussen have raced their horses in Grand Prairie. In fact, Asmussen, who currently sits atop the North American standings in both victories and earnings, is Lone Star’s all-time leading trainer. And many of North America’s leading horses have raced around the Lone Star oval, including Congaree, Real Quiet, Answer Lively, Hal’s Hope, Sir Bear, Bluesthestandard and Hallowed Dreams.

 Since the track opened, more than 8.8 million people have attended Lone Star and have wagered more than $1.7 billion.
 In 2002, Magna Entertainment, which also operates Santa Anita and Gulfstream Park, purchased Lone Star. Since then, in anticipation of the Breeders’ Cup, three new barns have been built, including a 96-stall quarantine barn. When nearly $8 million in capital improvements are completed, the winner’s circle and paddock areas will be expanded and the seating augmented to accommodate a crowd of 50,000. A new banquet room is also under construction.
 Lone Star is accepting ticket applications for the Breeders’ Cup at lonestarpark.com. The deadline for applying is June 4.

What you need to know

 Lone Star’s regular season runs from April to mid-July. But to accommodate the Breeders’ Cup, the track will have a special championship season, starting Oct. 1 and continuing through Oct. 31.
 During October, the North Texas weather is like Goldilocks’ favourite bowl of porridge, neither too hot nor too cold. The average high temperature for the month is 78, with an average low of 56. The average high on Oct. 30, by the way, is 72, and the average low 51. The record high for October is 90, recorded back in 1951. In other words, if you endured the weather in Southern California this past year, you’ll love Texas in October.
 Lone Star will offer 14 stakes races, in addition to the Breeders’ Cup events, during its October season. The opening weekend will feature stakes races that could serve as Breeders’ Cup preps – the Silver Spur for 2-year-old fillies, the Middleground for 2-year-old colts and geldings, and the Alysheba for 3-year-old sprinters. The $250,000 Lone Star Derby and the $150,000 Stonerside Stakes for 3-year-old fillies will be run Oct. 29.
 The Dallas area is one of the most dynamic sports markets in America, with professional basketball, soccer, hockey, football and baseball teams. Moreover, a series of festive events, including concerts, are planned leading up to the Breeders’ Cup.

Around the ovals

 Lone Star has a one-mile dirt track, with chutes for 1 ¼-mile and seven-furlong races. Inside the track, as is typical with American racetracks, is a seven-furlong turf course, with a chute angling across the infield.
 When the track first opened and its turf was immature, horses with early speed enjoyed considerable success. Because of that, the turf course developed a reputation for favouring speed. And that reputation, although confuted by hard evidence, lingers. Over the last four years, half of the 480 turf races around two turns have been won by horses that rallied – that is, by horses that were more than four lengths behind the early leader. And only 16 percent of the turf races have been won by horses on or near the early lead.

 The main track, on the other hand, seems to offer an advantage to tactical speed. The race is not always to the swift, as the prophet pointed out, but at Lone Star a modicum of early speed generally proves valuable. Horses that have sufficient speed to gain an early advantage or to race within a half-length of the early lead win more than a third of the sprints. But the most effective style is stalking – that is, racing close to the early leaders, within four lengths, and then pouncing in the stretch. Late-running types win about 18 percent of the races.
In two-turn races on the main track, the victories spread out somewhat more evenly among the three running styles. But stalkers again tend to have an advantage, winning nearly 40 percent of the races. Horses that rally from more than four lengths back win about 26 percent of the two-turn races.

 Few places in America have packaged the joy and excitement of racing more effectively. Lone Star quite simply is a fun place to attend the races. And on Oct. 30, it’ll become the host racetrack for the sport’s championship event. Lone Star and indeed all of Texas racing could be very much like the diminutive colt who 58 years ago outran early difficulties to attain enduring glory.

Hoppegarten Racecourse - a history of the German racecourse

May 17th 1868 was an important day in the history of German horseracing. Prussian King Wilhelm I (the founding of the German Empire and the title Emperor was still eight years away) himself attended the successful opening ceremony of “Hoppegarten” together with his ministers including Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Driving force behind the scenes was the Union-Klub, a Jockey Club founded in 1867 by leading racing enthusiast. The club purchased the over 600 hectares big area outside Berlin for the amount of 296,000 Prussian Taler. The name “Hoppegarten” comes from the fields, “garten” meaning garden, of hops that were replaced by the racecourse.

Very soon trainers from England opened up yards in Hoppegarten and racing was developing at a remarkable rate until the outbreak of World War I. The first trainer coming from England the homeland of horseracing and opening up a yard in Hoppegarten was in 1871 Ch. Hayhohe who was able to win the German Derby five times. Many others followed him including Richard Waugh and Reginald Day (Royal Stud of Graditz) at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. James Cooter, who was training horses for the King of Wuerttemberg and George Arnull, the trainer of the famous Schlenderhan Stud . In 1910 Emperor Wilhelm II declared himself out of pure enthusiasm “protector of the Union-Klub”. This was followed by a huge rebuilding programme that gave Hoppegarten the look it still has today. All wooden stands were replaced by solid steel and stone constructions.

It is today one of the very few racecourses around the world that has completely preserved it’s architecture for more than 80 years. Hoppegarten saw it’s best years without any doubt from 1925 to 1945. Over 1200 horses were in training in the yards surrounding the race track and training centre. The 775 hectare area included six race tracks just for training, 29 kilometres of turf and 16 kilometres of sand tracks. Top horses from England, France and Italy travelled to Germany to race in Hoppegarten. Leading European breeders and owners like Marcel Boussac, HH the Aga Khan and Frederico Tesio were frequent guests in Hoppegarten. In 1945 the Union-Klub went into exile to Cologne after the Soviet Occupational Government had taken away the property from Germany’s oldest Jockey Club for being too aristocratic and therefore being an enemy of the working class. Thanks to many racing enthusiasts in the former German Democratic Republic, the communist eastern part of the divided Germany, Hoppegarten survived almost without a scratch the 45 years that followed. One of the most remarkable racedays in the history of Hoppegarten was on the 31st March 1990.

It was the first German race meeting after reunification. The course was sold out with over 40,000 racing fans from both sides of the iron curtain that vanished six month earlier. For the first time in 30 years race fans, owners, trainers and jockeys from both parts of the country could meet, race and party together again. Throughout the nineties racing blossomed again at the racecourse of the capital. Legendary jockeys such as Lester Piggot, Frankie Dettori, Willie Carson, Steve Cauthen and many more met at the scales in Hoppegarten. All had similar comments: “A fantastic course, better than we had ever imagined”. Unforgettable moments were the visits of HRH Princess Anne, the victories of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum with George Augustus in the Prix Zino Davidoff and Central Park in the Europachampionat, and the first class sprinter Mr Brooks winning the Grosser Preis von Berlin. Though the Union-Klub was now back again in Hoppegarten organising racing it took over eleven more years to regain ownership by a compromise with the government granting the Union-Klub a 99 year lease of the property it purchased in 1874. Hoppegarten today is the stage for three international group races, the GROSSER PREIS VON DEUTSCHLAND (11th July, Gr. II), the GROSSER PREIS VON BERLIN (8th August, Gr. III), the VOLSWAGEN-PREIS DER DEUTSCHEN EINHEIT (3rd October, Gr. III) and a number of listed races.

Today, 14 years after re-unification the fixtures are well embedded into the German racing calendar. Since two years under the chairmanship of Peter Boenisch, a former secretary of state and spokesman of the Kohl Government, the historic racecourse is witnessing a remarkable upturn for horseracing in the German capital. A Milestone in getting racing back into the focus of the public and the media has been last year’s GROSSER PORSCHE PREIS VON DEUTSCHLAND that saw an unforgettable duel between Martillo and Mail The Dessert. Over 25,000 spectators, including chancellor Schroeder and Porsche CEO Wiedeking saw Hoeny-Hof Stud’s Martillo’s win. Hoppegarten today is still an ideal place to train and race horses in the most professional way. The 2350 metres long main racecourse is regarded as the best turf course in Germany. An ideal design with very wide turns and long straights provides fair conditions for all runners. The 550 metres long home straight with the “Anberg”, a slight elevation in the second last furlong, demands very precise timing from the jockeys. The 1400 metres straight sprint turf track is unique in Germany. Inside the main turf course is a hurdle course and the infield is used for jump races.

The stands are providing an un-obscured view of the whole course enabling racegoers to follow every second of the race with their own eyes against the background of over 100 hectares of forest surrounding the grounds from all sides. Already in the twenties of the last century the public gave Hoppegarten the name “Rennbahn im Grünen” meaning “racecourse in the green” or “Parkrennbahn” meaning Park Racecourse for its location in the middle of the green belt surrounding the capital. The Racecourse can be reached by car or train in 25 minutes from the centre of Berlin. Hoppegarten’s own train station is conveniently located only a 5 minute walk away from the main gate. Over a dozen public trainers have their yards nowadays in Hoppegarten using the training centre. Hoppegarten provides them with the biggest training grounds in Germany and very competitive costs. The biggest success story of the last two years was written by the Idea yard, led by Lord John Fitzgerald. Only in his second year in Berlin he is already the local prize money champion. Taking over the Idea yard in April 2002 Lord John continues in the tradition of English Trainers in Hoppegarten and connects the training centre to the glorious times before WW II.

Lord John previously trained in Newmarket from 1986 to 1992 before holding various senior management positions in the horseracing bodies of Dubai, Hong Kong and Macau. His first complete racing season in Germany in 2003 was very successful. Highlights were the victories of Anzasca in the Deutscher Stutenpreis in Cologne (Gr.III) and of Russian Samba in the Frankfurter Stutenpreis. For this season 35 horses are being prepared at the Idea yard, including 14 two year olds The Union-Klub von 1867 zu Berlin hopes to attract more horses, trainers and owners to come to Berlin in order to reinstall the historic course again as one of the most international centres in racing.

International incentives - how racecourses attract owners and trainers

Every racing authority and every racecourse must offer incentives if they have any particular ambitions. Appearance money, owners' premiums, breeders' premiums, travel allowances and all manner of special offers are either tried out or made a basic part of policy.

The question always is whether they have the intended result. If so, then the offerers must ask if the money was well spent and whether the chosen policy will produce a satisfactory result in the longer term. As for the owners and trainers who are the beneficiaries, their job is to keep themselves informed and pick up whatever they can. However successful, incentives remain extras. They have little point if a strong programme, which should lead horses up a ladder of opportunity, does not back them. Any weaknesses should be filled, as European authorities are currently attempting by offering more chances for fillies and mares. The lack of conditions and Listed events for two-year-olds, which leads so many trainers to step directly from winning a maiden into Group 3 class, may be just as undesirable a gap.

These gaps are among the reasons why our horses, and European ones in general, are so attractive to American agents and owners. American racetracks offer an extensive programme of allowances (conditions events)while their practice of keeping the sexes separate, at all stages of a horse's career, provides even more opportunities. European horses may have shown plenty of ability but can still have won only once or twice when they are sold. They are then able to make almost a fresh start, beginning at a relatively low point on the ladder, when they reappear in the United States.

A Listed race winner in Britain, France or Ireland has an excellent chance of winning an American Graded race. Add to that the greater economic strength of American buyers - even with the current weak dollar - and it is obvious that any changes designed to strengthen competition for horses, close to Pattern race level but not quite good enough, can only ever be partially successful at best. It should all start with that objective nevertheless, backed up by as many incentives as available funds will allow.

France has offered the most generous rewards ever since the sport was reorganized by Jean Romanet in the 1950s. The yields from the pari-mutuel monopoly are not as handsome as in the past but still support some amazing extra rewards. Owners of a French-bred receive a premium of 75 percent on all prizes in two-year-old races and of 63 percent in those for three-year-olds. There is an additional ten percent on offer in Listed and Group 3 events. Prizes and premiums go down to seventh in tierce handicaps and to fifth place in everything else. Owners receive no extra premium in races restricted to French-breds nor in many races for older horses however. Breeders are just as handsomely compensated, even in races for French-breds, in which they receive at least 19 percent of the prize in juvenile events. Roseanna, a daughter of Anabaa trained by Criquette Head-Maarek, which won the Listed Prix Yacowlef for Peter Savill at Deauville last August, earned her breeders a 25.9 percent premium.

Savill, who picked up an extra 85 percent of his £13,312 first prize, is far from the only British owner attracted to France although the number of British-owned horses in training there is well down on the level in the early 1970s. Most owners want to see their horses in action whenever possible and sending them to another country decreases that chance. Other considerations come into play for breeders as well.

The Niarchos Family picked up a prize of €199,990 when Six Perfections won the race which they sponsor, the Prix Jacques Le Marois, at Deauville. In addition, the French-bred daughter of Celtic Swing earned them premiums of €125,993(63 percent) as owners and €45,637(22.8 percent) as breeders, plus a special prize of €85,710 (42.86 percent) from the EBF. Yet the Niarchos operation, although based at the Haras de Fresnay le Buffard in Normandy, has always relied on the horses which it breeds in Kentucky and which are not qualified for any of these incentives. Similarly, the Aga Khan has always been happy to breed in Ireland and race in France.

Such owners breed and raise their horses where they are most likely to achieve classic success. Incentives, even ones as generous as those in France, are more important to people operating on a smaller scale. But by how much do they promote the buying and racing of French horses, how much do they encourage the raising of standards and how much are they simply a reward for the continuation of mediocrity? These are questions which have been debated for years.

Some British trainers have made effective use of the premiums, as Brian Meehan did with the likes of Brief Encounta and Challenges in 1998-99, but the experiment was not continued. Success abroad is counterbalanced by the heavy demands which regular foreign ventures make on the way a stable operates.

Owners might also be tempted by the rewards for purchasing Italian-breds to race in that country, starting with an extra 50 percent on all two-year-old winners, except in sellers and claimers, in all other flat races worth more than 8,800 euros in total (which means about £2,800 to the winner), and in all jumps races and amateur events. These premiums increase by stages in more valuable races, and in Listed and Pattern events, until you double your money if you can win a Group 1 with an Italian-bred. Prize money itself is excellent by any European standard, and racing has grown steadily more competitive, but there has been no real move by foreign owners to take advantage. Italian breeders are also well rewarded, receiving premiums in every race and special prizes for the first ones home in major events, wherever they finish. Owners of British-breds now receive premiums of 25 percent in most races for two to four-year-olds on the flat and for the majority of jumps races, with a maximum payout of £25,000 for a winner and £10,000 for a placed horse. More questionably, the premium increases to 50 percent for fillies & mares competing over jumps. The BHB has budgeted £1.1m for this year but estimates that the scheme, which is intended to increase the demand for British-breds at the sales, will cost £3.5m in 2005 and £7.2m by 2011. It was intended to supplant breeders' premiums but they will continue for this year at least.

One significant difference between Britain and Ireland and other major racing countries is the much smaller proportion of horses raced by their breeders. Premiums might have a more certain effect if there were more owner-breeders. There is little public sympathy for commercial breeders because it is so easy to point to the apparently rich gains they can make at the Sales.

However, for each example of that type, there is at least another like the story of the American filly You. Now five, You won nine of her 23 races, including four Grade 1 events, and earned $2,101,353. She was bred by Dolphus Morrison, who sold her privately after she had finished second and won a maiden in his colours. But he had already given away her dam, Our Dani, to the University of Louisiana. You won her first Grade 1 in the Frizette Stakes at Belmont in October 2001. Three months later, the University sold Our Dani, in foal to the virtually unknown In a Walk, sire of 98 foals from his first five crops, for $625,000 at Keeneland.

The most successful trainers are those who take advantage of the current situation and adapt most rapidly to any changes, either in the programme or in the way incentives are offered. If there is extra money on offer, take it. It is for others to worry over the effects and to make changes as necessary. When Haydock Park tried to make its chases more competitive by offering a prize to trainers, Martin Pipe sent well-laden horseboxes up the motorways and swamped the opposition. When Ascot offered a prize to trainers, in an attempt to increase the fields for its jumping, it used a combination of success in the races and the number of runners supplied. Michael Chapman saddled enough horses from his Market Rasen stables to win the money.

Much the same happened when appearance money was introduced for runners in conditions events in July 2000. Rank horses were soon working overtime, particularly on Sundays, which carried extra bonuses. Four Men and Time For The Clan each ran 35 times in 2001. The only occasion on which either won a prize was when Four Men was second of three behind a 1-40 shot. Yet both horses earned their keep, which is something, many much superior animals could not do.

Offer an attractive prize and some smart trainer will step up to bid for and probably win it. When Kempton offered £50,000 in 1987, backed by an insurance policy, to the first horse to win three handicaps at the course, Gerald Cottrell soon snapped it up with Stock Hill Lass. When the Bank of Montreal put up a bonus of $1,000,000 for a Canadian Triple Crown winner starting in 1989, no horse had done the treble since Canebora in 1963. Yet With Approval, Izvestia and Dance Smartly did so in the first three years and the Bank cried enough. Only the $US5,000,000 Visa Triple Crown Challenge bonus, first offered in 1987, has remained out of reach. Plenty of horses have won two of the races but there has been no Triple Crown hero in America since Affirmed in 1978. Travel allowances, which were backed in Britain by the Tote from its earliest years, were one of the first incentives. Again they were exploited, or abused, depending on your point of view, by enterprising trainers. They are a matter of particular rather than general policy nowadays, paid by courses seeking to maintain or improve their position rather than by the overall authorities. Goodwood offers £1,000 for any foreign-trained runner, including Irish ones, in its 11 Group races and an additional £1,000 to any of them, which have won a Group 1 or Group 2 during the current season. Punchestown pays travel allowances and other expenses for overseas runners at its Festival meeting and was rewarded with its first French-trainer runner, admittedly Irish-owned, when First Gold won the Heineken Gold Cup last April. Horse Racing Ireland pays a travel allowance of €1,000 to any overseas raider, which finishes out of the money in Group or Listed races.

This method of rewarding foreign participation is gaining popularity with other promoters of international races, like Arlington, Hollywood Park and Woodbine, all of which also offer a generous welcome to owners. Cagnes-sur-Mer and Pau offer travel allowances, graduated according to the distance covered, and subsidised stabling to attract runners, most of which come from the Paris area, where racing shuts down for the best part of three months. As in the United States, where subsidised stabling is an important part of the sport, they do not look kindly on those who take up box space without running their horses. Deauville paid travel allowances in 1962 at a time when competition was weak. They attracted a lot of runners, including eight English winners and three from Ireland. When the scheme was repeated the following year, however, it began to attract the equivalents of Four Men and Time For The Clan and was abandoned.

Travel allowances are at their most important in international races these days. The Breeders' Cup considers its prizes sufficient inducement to contest the so-called World Thoroughbred Championships. But it loses runners as a result to the Japan Cup and the four rich events at Sha Tin in mid-December, for each of which all expenses are paid. Equally generous incentives are offered in the spring, when horses can follow an international trail through the Dubai World Cup meeting, the Audemars Piguet Queen Elizabeth II Cup and the Singapore Airlines International Cup. Of course, your horse still has to be good enough to receive an invitation but big money is not a enough on its own. In addition to the excellent prize money, the new Dubai International Racing Carnival at Nad al Sheba offered free transport and stabling, provided the horses run twice or more at the carnival. Dubai also paid what the Japanese call 'participation incentive money' of $2,000 to horses finishing from fifth to tenth in races with total prize money of $75,000 or more.

The Japanese themselves have been gradually opening up their big races to international competition. The number of open events has reached 23 this year. You might think that the gigantic prizes would be enough but that is not the case. There is no entry fee and it costs only about £520 to run in the Grade 2 Yomiuri Milers Cup at Hanshin on April 17. The winner is guaranteed over £313,000 and even the eighth will earn £18,765 yet there will be few if any international entries, let alone runners. Dumaani, owned by Hamdan al Maktoum and trained by Kiaran McLaughlin in Dubai, was a 56-1 winner of the £392,466 Keio Hai Spring Cup at Tokyo Racecourse in April 1995. Heart Lake, who ran fifth in that race for Godolphin and Saeed bin Suroor, went on to lift the £670,840 Yasuda Kinen the following month. Godolphin did it again with Heart Lake in the 1996 Keio Hai Spring Cup and added another huge prize when Annus Mirabilis, ridden by Darryll Holland, took the £405,308 Mainichi Okan that October. Annus Mirabilis returned to Japan in June 1998 to finish third in the Group 2 Naruo Kinen at Hanshin. But his connections lost interest while most others are more conscious of the certain expense rather than the possible gains. At the time of Maktoum interest, there were no travel allowances except in the Japan Cup. But the Japanese now pay the expenses of horses, which are sufficiently highly-rated, as Tout Seul and the French-trained Special Kaldoun were when they contested the Grade 1 Mile Championship at Kyoto last November.

None of this will stop racecourses from offering incentives to attract big names, as Ascot did so successfully with Choisir. Ascot has now established a formal link with Racing Victoria, by way of the newly-established Silver Arrow Sprint Challenge at the Melbourne tracks. Choisir won and then finished third and sixth in the first three legs of this four race series last year. The Challenge offers a bonus of $AUS500,000 to any horse which can win three out of four, a prize which would have been claimed by Placid Ark in 1987 and Schillaci in 1992. In addition it guarantees an expenses paid trip to the big Royal Ascot sprints for the horse, which does best in the series. Everyone wants the best horses.

The Challenge is just the latest device to promote international competition. If it works, everyone will be happy: if not, they will try something else. Most incentives only have a brief life and, if you have the chance, you should take advantage of them while you can.

The growing pattern - how and why new races have been added

Very few ideas for radical change in horseracing are either universally popular or accepted at the first time of asking. And that’s if a single authority is involved. When a group of nations, some of which have a history of antipathy, bordering on hostility, towards each other’s proposals, come together to examine a programme of alterations, the chances of a speedy and amicable resolution are even slimmer.

Something rare happened, therefore, over the last quarter of 2003, which led to January’s announcement by the European Pattern Committee of a greatly expanded programme of Group 1 and 2 races for fillies in 2004. The bare facts are that three separate layers of opportunity confined to higher-grade fillies of three years and upwards have been created and will be contested this year.

As far as the top two Pattern groups are concerned, they break down into three distance categories - a mile, ten furlongs and a mile and a half. Furthermore, the aim has been achieved to provide a steady flow of opportunities, approximately one a month, across Europe from the end of May to the beginning or end of October in the shorter-distance brackets, and from the beginning of July in the longest. In addition, the authorities in Britain and Ireland have sought to build on the framework by enhancing opportunities just below the very highest grade, so that Ireland will have two more Group 3 races, and Britain will have five, in keeping with the overall strength of its current horse population. Behind the creation of what amounts to a pattern within the Pattern, confined solely to fillies and mares, lies an unprecedented intent to do something about a growing European problem, and a remarkable determination to do it quickly.

No time to let the grass grow here, seemed to be the underlying thought, even though caution was raised in some quarters. The ultimate objective was simple: to produce a programme of races throughout the year that would act as encouragement to owners of higher-grade older fillies to keep them in training in Europe. The lure of the US dollar has grown ever more powerful, and with prize-money stacking up high, turf horses have exited Europe with damaging regularity. Cash led the call for colts; lack of suitable opportunities appeared to be a more dominant force for taking away fillies. It didn’t take a genius to fire the European Pattern Committee into thinking that something had to be done. But what? Give the fillies something to aim at, that’s what. And the 2004 programme is the resulting magnet.

Already the radical steps appear to have had an effect. Russian Rhythm, Soviet Song and Favourable Terms in Britain; Six Perfections and Nebraska Tornado in France; Echoes In Eternity from Godolphin: they have all stayed in training as four-year-olds, and the new programme has been cited as part of the persuasion. Each one is out of the top drawer, but in any other year, it is doubtful if all six would have been kept for another season.

But 2004 will not be ‘any other year.’ Jason Morris, racing director at Horse Racing Ireland, is understandably delighted at the response. “This was precisely the aim of the initiative,” he says, adding that the newly elevated Irish races should draw the horses, and bring in the crowds. The reasoning of Godolphin racing manager Simon Crisford is impossible to fault. “It’s good news for owners of fillies that have sufficient quality to compete against each other in the top class,” he says. “It has certainly encouraged us to keep Echoes In Eternity in Europe rather than send her to the US, because it makes it easier to plan her programme. She can go to America later in the season.” Favourable Terms is perhaps the least well known of the six named here, but her career lends as much credibility to the new programme as any other. Owner-bred by Maktoum Al Maktoum, she did not race until May last year, and ended the season having won three out of five starts for Sir Michael Stoute, including the Group 2 Matron Stakes at Leopardstown. She would have been a prime candidate for the paddocks in any other year, but it bears repeating that this is not ‘any other year.’ For one thing, the Matron Stakes now has Group 1 status, and who would bet against Favourable Terms attempting a follow-up, now that the opportunities are there to test her rate of improvement? The decision that Six Perfections, for one, would stay in training as a four-year-old was made public within hours of her winning the Breeders Cup Mile.

The European Pattern Committee had set the late-October international meeting at Santa Anita as its first deadline to tell the bloodstock world the bare bones at least of its plan for fillies. They reasoned that owners of the fillies they were targeting, especially those with permanent racing and breeding careers in the US in mind, would be making their own plans by then. Their urgency apparently worked, for trainer Pascal Bary said at the time: “It’s wonderful news for me, my staff and the racing public that the Niarchos family has decided to keep Six Perfections in training, and no doubt the changes to the programme were taken into consideration.” That the framework for the changes was announced in October at all was a departure from normal practice. The European Pattern Committee usually gets its individual thoughts together in the autumn, to be crystallised at the annual meeting in December or early-January. Last year, the committee decided in July that it would set up a sub-group to look at the fillies’ programme, with a view to reporting to the annual meeting in January 2004. They thought there was room for improvement, especially among the older age bracket and particularly in the early part of the season. The sub-group met within two months, and suddenly the mood for change picked up a head of steam, with the French and Irish teams leading the charge, and Britain erring on the side of caution with a plea for a phased introduction of the radical alterations. By the middle of September it had been decided that tinkering with a few races was not enough; there should be a greatly enhanced programme, especially in Groups 1 and 2, and that it if it was to happen at all, it should happen immediately.

The European Pattern Committee met in London a month later, just ahead of the Breeders Cup meeting, and a raft of changes were agreed, taking in all three groups and the trio of distance categories. The Group 1 and 2 details were made public in the second week of December, and the die was cast. In less than six months the mood of the committee had gone from exploratory to explosion. The new races and upgrades have been given three years to prove their worth. If any race does not meet the required ratings parameters, it will be downgraded, without the warning that is given to other Pattern races under the ground rules. Ruth Quinn, the BHB’s director of racing, who played a full part in the process, believes the overall benefits could take that long to work through. “It’s fantastic that the new programme already seems to be having an effect,” she says, “but it has been created with the longer term in mind, and we need to build up a pool of better-class fillies in Europe.” Quinn also believes the outstanding fillies will still take on the colts in the traditional Group 1 races, particularly those over a mile, such as the Prix Jacques le Marois and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. “We didn’t want to create a complete mirror image of the colts’ programme, as they have in the US,” she says, “but we had to make a great deal of improvement in the fillies’ programme if we want to stem the constant flow to the States.”

Philip Freedman, owner of the Cliveden Stud and chairman of the BHB’s Flat Race Advisory Panel, which feeds its thoughts and expertise into the European Pattern Committee, has already seen evidence that the ploy is working. His US trainer Christophe Clement has received fewer European-trained older fillies this winter, and has jokingly suggested he is being put out of business. Freedman, who acknowledges the efforts of a Thoroughbred Breeders Association group chaired by Bill Paton-Smith in first bringing the fillies’ cause to attention, accepts there could be a downside to the enhancements, as owners face greater temptation to keep the best to the company of their own sex. However, he looks to the bigger picture. “We may have to face up to a slightly less competitive Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, for instance, but if the changes to the programme were going to work, it had to be done as a big project,” he reasons. “Adding one or two races wouldn’t have had the same impact. “While I would have been equally happy if, say, the Sun Chariot Stakes had not gone up to Group 1, if we accept that we are running the fillies’ programme as a separate entitity to the colts’, it makes sense for the Sun Chariot to be upgraded. There had to be a logical programme.” The next three years will determine how successful the original logic was. Howard Wright is a member of the BHB Flat Race Advisory Panel.

Howard Wright (European Trainer - issue 7 - Spring 2004)