“There has been a lot of comment on the withdrawal of support by trainers for a race at Newbury recently. The tracks continue to disregard the cost of ‘just running in a race’ by putting up disrespectful prize money. If this continues then ‘action’ such as that at Newbury and the withdrawal of runners 3 years ago at ARC tracks will become common place.

For what difference it will make here is my tuppence worth : –

Could it be that solution is in our own hands ?

Owners and trainers (as one) could agree not enter in races below a certain minimum value for each grade. The tracks would have to offer these minimums to compete for our runners.

If the current funding model does not allow for this to happen perhaps the tracks could be transparent enough to show us why this is the case.

However I suspect the money may be there.

Sounds simple doesn’t it ?

Can we ALL agree as to what this minimum should be? I doubt it. Even if we did, there would be some that would try to nick an uncompetitive race, no matter what the prize on offer ?

Is it therefore collectively our own fault ??

The tracks know we will race for whatever they offer.!! We have done for years !!

I believe we have the best racing in the world and we do have a choice not to race for poor prize money. We should try to use that choice.

If owners had a chance of paying their annual training costs with a win and a couple of places our businesses would be viable.

Instead we rely on being able to produce horses to sell them as a business model.

Is it a wonder that we have such small fields ?

Most of our good horses end up abroad where the prize money is so much better and owning them makes more sense.

If we make this choice. In time, in Britain, we may be given an incentive to keep the horses to provide the volume of runners the tracks require to sustain their businesses. In turn we may even be able to earn a living ourselves and reward our staff accordingly.

Just a thought.”

Conrad Allen

July 2022