Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
TTR’s problems-and-solutions series has so far heard from a trainer, breeder, punter, race club board member and welfare advocate. The next response comes from bloodstock agent Duncan Ramage, who has brokered the deals for over 20 Group 1 winners.
What is the biggest problem in racing?
Ramage agrees with Olly Tait that one of the factors affecting the reducing numbers of investors into racing, and by extension into breeding, is that costs are rising and prizemoney is currently distributed in manner that doesn’t reflect the investment risk.
What is the solution?
Following on from Olly Tait’s perspective piece on the problems and solutions series, I offer some potential solutions that may not be too hard to implement, even if racing followed the vogue in various sports of trial periods of immediate rule amendments.
It must first however be recognised that premium and high value races such as The Everest and King Charles are newer manifestations of peak races and of course the historical treasured races such as The Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, Golden Sipper, Doncaster, etc, bring enormous cachet and interest into racing.
They are racing’s Wimbledon, Super Bowl, Boxing Day Cricket Test, or State Of Origin days.
I think a driver for interest in ownership in racing is to make every metropolitan and provincial maiden race eligible for two, three and probably 4-year-olds to be elevated to super maiden (or boosted) prizemoney status.
Duncan Ramage | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
It is not a given right that you own a racehorse, it should win a race, but it is a statistical fact that the greater percentage of racehorses win just one race. If your horse is still a maiden as a 5-year-old, he or she is probably not destined to be a winner. Racing needs to make it worthwhile to the owners of the vast majority of horses to try again to find the unicorn horse.
To determine the cost of raising these maiden races should be easily calculable by the number of them run in the racing calendar and the added prizemoney needed. I suspect the number may not be as high as one might think.
Financing the increase can be directly made by reducing the prizemoney of a number of high value races that do not really justify their value, but leaving the peak races untouched. An example to me (apologies Illawarra Turf Club, we race a lot of horses at your venue) is the $300,000 The Warra.
With particular regard to country maidens, I believe the implementation of further measures is warranted.
While possibly shooting my own interests in the foot, I own a share in just one country trained horse as a way of friendship, and my own horses are metropolitan trained in the hope that is where they will race.
We have seen over the test of time Admiral Rous’ Weight For Age Scale giving fillies and mares a 2kg allowance hold true, despite some claims otherwise. It is hard to hold a strong woman back!
I believe, while hard to make work given lighter weight jockeys are hard to find, implementing a current vogue word of a Tariff, we could raise the weight of horses trained by metropolitan trainers or trainers of more than 100 horses by 2kg in country maidens.
While repeating it is not a given right that if you own a horse it should win a race, citing back to Olly Tait’s statement on mass racing ownership, it is my perception that country owners of country trained horses own bigger percentages. By way of simple snapshot example, using Race 1 from Mudgee today, of the 10 acceptors in the maiden, five have a sole owner, just three have more than three owners, and two have two or three owners. Simply the first race on the card of an upcoming country meeting.
Giving a somewhat more level playing field should give owners a reason to return and try again.
These are two solutions that could be tried, tested and repeated if the data does not support it in a short period of time.
So we put the question back to the industry: how would you reorganise prizemoney to incentivise investment, and what top prize races will make the cut?
Email your thoughts to vicky@ttrausnz.com.au.
Read the other answers in this series:
