Top Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien is heading for £5 million in prize money in Britain this season. That’s to be celebrated.
It’s great to have Coolmore’s horses running in Britain’s top races as it keeps the overall quality where it needs to be, but not everything is rosy in the garden.
Appleby Increasingly Looking Elsewhere
We’re sure to see plenty of O’Brien runners in our remaining Group 1 races throughout 2024. Among British racing’s many problems at the moment though is the lack of notice anyone is taking over our own top trainer sending more and more horses abroad to compete.
We’re lucky this season to see lots of strength in depth with Charlie Appleby’s juveniles. Aomori City, Ruling Court and others will light up the track this term. The latter is already favourite for both the 2000 Guineas and the Derby next year.
Godolphin’s number one supports home events of course and has already won the 2000 Guineas and the Sussex Stakes with Notable Speech. He is increasingly moving more and more horses overseas to get top-level action and better prize money however, even running a satellite yard in the States this year.
The big question is why?
Conditions and Money the Key
There is a major myth among casual racing fans that surrounds Godolphin sending horses abroad for easy Group 1 wins. They pompously talk of our Group 3 or even Listed-quality horses being able to trot over to America and win Grade 1’s for big prize money. That’s not the case.
In the case of such horses, they have usually been good enough for Group 1 competition here, but they don’t get the conditions they need. Appleby and Godolphin are willing to travel to get the best out of each individual horse.
Notable Speech can win here, so that’s the route they take. The likes of Nations Pride, Star Of Mystery, Silver Knott et al however really want proper fast ground and turning tracks which means their talent is wasted on these shores.
There’s a huge difference between lolling up a long, wide, windy straight at places like Newmarket and going hell for leather rounds the turns of Keeneland or Saratoga. Prize money too is so much bigger over the water.
Why would you run on unsuitable softer ground on a straight track for £40,000 and achieve Group 3 level when you can run on a fast, turning track, getting up to Grade 1 level and running for $500,000?
Also, if it’s so easy to just rock up to the States and win millions then why don’t all our trainers do it?
The Need for Faster Going
It’s not all about prize money either. We continue to water tracks here and it is so incredibly frustrating.
Though we run over different distances in this sport, the basic idea is still for a horse to get from point A to point B in the fastest time, is it not? It’s a celebration of equine speed so why do we keep deliberately slowing them down? The frustration is real.
The worst thing of all about this situation is that there is something tangible we can do about it.
How to Keep Our Best Horses at Home
(Alarnsen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
We can’t do much about the weather in this country, that’s fair. But in trying to change the going the solution is two-fold.
Firstly, we must stop watering until it is necessary on safety grounds. Lots of top-class horses would love proper fast summer ground here and they simply don’t get it.
Even outside of the Appleby yard, many British-trained runners head off to the Breeders’ Cup each November and many others now begin in Dubai in February or March for the conditions, not just the money.
As well as stopping watering, another solution is to run some of our top-class races on the all-weather.
We cannot halt the rain and we cannot just abandon traditional courses to build tight, American-style tracks allowing punters to see all the action. We can utilise what we have, as long as facilities improve.
The stigma of all-weather races is old and and has to end. Our Polytrack and Tapeta surfaces are fair with top trainers using them all the time.
Notable Speech won the 2000 Guineas via Kempton, while Enable, Stradivarius and a number of others won their Group 1’s via Newcastle. We’re not seeing our best horses here often enough and it has to change.
As well as altering underfoot conditions, we need to keep our money.
Pool betting rather than traditional on-course bookies is the way to go, just as it is in higher-paying racing territories such as America, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan. We on the other hand let our millions just leave the sport in the bookies’ satchels.
If you were handed control of the sport and realised our bar and restaurant workers were on £100,000 each, would you keep the status quo? No, you’d allow them to leave and hire people at the appropriate rate to save cash. We allow our money to walk out of the course after every major meeting.
Producing nice ground and £500k races can be achieved at York, but not every racecourse owner can (or will) do it which is now a major concern.