The year of the microshare: a week of excitement for hundreds

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

The world’s richest race on turf, the $20 million G1 The Everest, will celebrate its 10th edition on Saturday, with 2025 champion Ka Ying Rising (NZ) (Shamexpress {NZ}) returning to Australia to defend his crown. Amongst his 11 adversaries, carrying the red and black silks of microshare company MyRacehorse, is 4-year-old Ninja (Farnan).

The three-time Group winner is the latest headliner for the dual hemisphere microshare syndication company’s Australian arm, with a four-digit ownership figure tuning in to cheer him on.

Another microshare company - much more in its infancy - are riding a different high coming into the weekend; 3-year-old filly Over The Bridge (Toronado {Ire}), the first runner for Unbridled Racing, captured the G3 Scarborough Stakes at Caulfield in September and returns to the scene of that victory this Saturday, where she is nominated across three features including the G1 One Thousand Guineas.

Both horses are the perfect advertisements for the microshare syndication scheme, which has been growing in popularity in recent years, and neither are its only successes. In a market where owners have to balance their own every-day costs with participating in the sport they enjoy, the microshare ownership concept has really started to rise.

Not all syndicates are alike

While there are similarities between the two, a microshare syndicate does differ from a standard syndicate in racehorse ownership.

All racehorse syndication companies are required to either hold an Australian financial services (AFS) licence or be an Authorised Representative of an entity that does. Syndicators must produce product disclosure statements, which must be approved before they can sell shares in a horse. An ordinary syndicate, however, is not required to be registered as a managed investment fund with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

Microshare syndicates are also a managed investment scheme; the scheme has to be registered with ASIC from the get-go, money is pooled into the fund, and the nominated manager will control how it is used and invested on behalf of the members. Recent updates to ASIC legislation have no impact on microshare schemes.

There is essentially no limit on the amount of people who can be in one of these managed investment schemes - it is only limited by the amount of shares a syndicator wishes to sell.

The price point stands out as an obvious difference, as is its composition. An ordinary share in a racehorse is largely based on the acquisition price and associated costs, with ongoing costs to be billed to the share owner, while a microshare is a one-off payment made through the syndicator’s website. The price is calculated to cover all costs for the horse over a set period of time, with one of the most common timeframes being three years.

“It is a completely different product to conventional syndication,” said Anthony Fleiter, director and CEO of Sire Custodians, whom the vast majority of microshare syndication companies are Authorised Representatives of.

“The microshare syndicator places their own cap on the amount of shares in a horse and adjusts the individual unit price accordingly to keep it in the sweet spot of appealing to customers while also covering all costs.”

Understandably, given the number of owners in any horse, it is also not a quick idea to pull off.

“You can't just decide to set up a microshare scheme business overnight. A lot of work has to be done to establish the point-of-sale software on the websites where shares are bought, and that has to pass a high level of scrutiny and security. It is quite technical.”

While Racing Australia and state regulators conduct their own identification checks on individual shareholders of horses when they register their ownership of a horse, the scheme itself is the registered owner for microshare horses. The scheme itself becomes responsible for the people within it.

In addition, prize money - which is received into the fund’s trust account from the relevant jurisdiction - for potentially thousands of owners needs to be routed into verified bank accounts through digital wallets, where unit holders can either withdraw their prize share or keep it to credit against the purchase of another unit. Fleiter, who also specialises in stallion syndication, employs two members of staff whose only job is to care for this part of the business.

“It is not a game for the faint-hearted, and it requires a significant investment in time and technology to get going,” he said. “But it is important to remember that it is a different product - one that MyRacehorse has had a lot of success with, and I don’t doubt that Unbridled Racing will too.”

A gap in the market

While Unbridled Racing, which was conceived by Ciaron Maher Racing, only launched just a couple of months ago, the work began over 12 months in the past to be able to launch the product.

CMR CEO Sam Cavanough and Godolphin Flying Start graduate Adam Holland have nurtured the microshare syndicate’s germination from idea to reality, investing heavily in the backend software development to set up their own systems for communication, taking payments, and prize money dispersal.

Cavanough said that the current market had presented an opportunity for a different kind of investment.

“We haven’t struggled to sell our horses at CMR in the traditional way, but we were having a lot of our customers asking about purchasing smaller shares,” he said. “And when you look at the success of some of the other microshare syndicates people have had already, it was easy to see there was a growing appetite for it.

“People are becoming more aware that there is a different way to own racehorses and still have fun.”

The one-off price to play will hopefully both bring new owners to racing, and ensure current ones can sustainably stay in the game.

“Hopefully they will have uptake irrespective of the global market,” Holland said. “Given they are such at an affordable price, when there is ongoing poor economic conditions to deal with, it allows people to stay engaged in racing without spending a great deal.”

Over The Bridge had been purposefully selected as a candidate for Unbridled Racing, with single shares available to purchase in the $250,000 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale graduate for as little as $155. A total of 523 individual owners have invested in the filly to varying amounts, and a three-year term was set, at which point the scheme will decide whether to sell her or to refund what is left in the scheme’s pool to owners.

“Think of it like buying a brick in a house, and then sharing in the profits when the house sells,” Cavanough said. “We have known for quite some time that Over The Bridge would be an ideal candidate for Unbridled and we always believed she could get black-type, but I don’t think we thought she could win a stakes race at her second start.”

“The win at Caulfield was incredible for all involved,” Holland said. “Everyone that I have spoken to seemed overjoyed about the experience, which is amazing. We are really pleased to bring more people into horseracing, and to do so with a horse with the talent of Over The Bridge.”

A Golden opportunity

The scheme’s second horse, Amazing Journey (Ire) (Starspangledbanner), made his first public appearance in Australia in last week’s Group trial won by Ninja over Ka Ying Rising, and is expected to head to the G1 Golden Eagle first up. Units in the Northern Hemisphere 3-year-old have been sold for $349.

“Will Bourne identified this horse as a Golden Eagle candidate and we were going to purchase him anyway, but we wanted to reward early supporters of Unbridled with the opportunity to run in a Group 1 race really early on,” Cavanough said.

“Given CMR’s purchasing power and strong branding, it was an experience we wanted to offer early on to differentiate ourselves.”

No horse purchase without risk, but what makes microshare syndication for trainers so appealing is the knowledge that three years’ worth of training fees and associated costs has essentially already been banked.

For owners, they know they get to be part of the action for three years without having to pay another cent, and - particularly with good fillies - there is the chance of a significant payout at the other end.

“It is a little like a lotto ticket,” Cavanough said. “You make a one-off payment and, regardless of whether the horse is good or bad, you pay nothing again. For the trainer, it is always reassuring when you know you are guaranteed to get paid, on time and in full.”

The pioneers

The concept of microshare schemes on Australian soil was pioneered by MiRunners and similar entities, but it is MyRacehorse that stands head and shoulders above the rest in 2026.

Since their launch in mid 2021, their silks have been hoisted by the likes of G1 New Zealand Derby winner Willydoit (NZ) (Tarzino {NZ}) and G1 Flight Stakes winner Apocalyptic (Extreme Choice), but the company has been established several years longer in the United States.

In a daring early move, MyRacehorse acquired 12.5% in Authentic (USA) ahead of his 2020 victories in the G1 Kentucky Derby, the G1 Haskell Stakes, and the G1 Breeders' Cup Classic. Around 5000 individuals paid $206 to acquire units in the colt, who has produced Group 1 winners since his arrival the following year at Spendthrift Farm.

In 2024, they repeated the adrenaline highs with G1 Preakness Stakes and G1 Pennsylvania Derby winner Seize The Grey (USA), who now stands at Gainesway and welcomed his first foals this year.

A $380,000 purchase at the 2024 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, Ninja is 50% owned by MyRacehorse and was originally syndicated for $180 per unit. When speaking to Magic Millions before the first yearling sale of the 2026 season, the company’s Australian Managing Director Ben Willis placed their ownership pool at around 65,000 individual owners.

“There's probably a limit to the number of people who want to invest in micro shares, but it's not a prohibitive amount of money,” said Fleiter, who helped to set up MyRacehorse’s Australian company. Where that limit is, the market has not yet reached, and when the results keep rolling in, the product continues to sell itself.

Having earned over $1.3 million for connections, Ninja secured the first Everest slot of 2026 when John Camilleri’s Fairway Thoroughbreds announced him for their slot in early September. Last week, a 1% share in the horse sold for $55,000 via Inglis Digital to David Blumberg, valuing the horse at $5.5 million.

A first place cheque on Saturday would have Blumberg recoup all of his spend, and then some, with MyRacehorse’s owners splitting some $3.5 million between them. While the whole ownership group will not be able to stand in the mounting yard with their Everest runner, the MyRacehorse tables will likely be overflowing at Randwick on Saturday.

Meanwhile Apocalyptic has been nominated for Saturday’s Listed Silver Eagle, the $1 million lead-up to the Golden Eagle, where she may do battle with Amazing Journey. Their presence alone could make it the race with the largest pool of ownership cheering for a runner.

“I think MyRacehorse will benefit from not just being the pioneers in the game, but with having someone like Unbridled Racing as competition,” Fleiter said. “It is the same for stallion syndication - leading brands benefit from healthy competition.”