Should British Racing Be Worried?

The title of this thread is Should British Racing Be Worried, and the clear answer is that it should.

How attractive to the average ITV viewer are endless scenes of Irish celebrations? How attractive are they to race sponsors and all but the hard core followers of the sport? And the racing industries in both countries are part of the same ecosystem, so if this situation persists for too long it will impact negatively on Irish racing too. But in the meantime it's good to be able to prove that Henderson, Nicholls and the other greats that went before them have no exclusive monopoly on talent.

The prize money for young horses starting out in Britain is way behind where it needs to be. Bumpers, maiden, novice and beginner races needs particular attention if a pool of good young horses is to be attracted to race there. Average horses in their first season in Ireland can probably win the double of what their British counterparts can earn.
 
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I’m not having it that all of a sudden nicholls and Henderson can’t train. They have a hundred festival winners between them. It’s clearly a prize money/ race program problem and they should have realised that the second an institution as quintessentially English as cheveley park stud decided to spend millions on top talent and send it all over the water.
 
I didn’t say that Henderson and Nicholls can’t train, I’m not that stupid. What I did say is it turns out that others can too.

Regarding Cheveley Park, Ricci, Munir and Souede etc, they’re in Ireland partly for the money and partly for the expertise. But there is plenty of investment going the other way too. JP, the Donnellys, Morans and plenty of others have horses in both countries.
 
My only issue with the title of the thread is that it should be 'not looking good across the water' to remind people of Alan byrne's piece and long thread on here of ten years ago.

I know it's not directly related to the thread but it has to be the first time in living memory that the champion jockey didn't have a ride at the festival.
 
In answer to my own question I think they should be very worried indeed.

As someone said earlier, this has been building for some years and we have now reached a point where, in general, the Irish horses are head and shoulders superior, from the top Grade 1 champions down through to the handicappers. We have one or two really top notchers, but that is but a puddle of talent set against the veritable swimming pool of talent in Ireland.

So far as the racing is concerned it’s like sending rally cars out to compete against F1 machines. As Kim Bailey said “ Cheltenham is our Olympics and the races were run at speeds we would not normally believe possible.. the competition was tough and the racing was relentless..”

It’s going to be a tough road back and it really is to be hoped that this thrashing will jerk the powers that be out of their complacency.
 
I'm guessing the Irish have more 'monied' owners than the Brits, which possibly relates to the boom in their economy a few years back.
I still believe that 'not offs' are countenanced more liberally over there, too.
 
Grey said:
The title of this thread is Should British Racing Be Worried, and the clear answer is that it should.

How attractive to the average ITV viewer are endless scenes of Irish celebrations? How attractive are they to race sponsors and all but the hard core followers of the sport? And the racing industries in both countries are part of the same ecosystem, so if this situation persists for too long it will impact negatively on Irish racing too. But in the meantime it's good to be able to prove that Henderson, Nicholls and the other greats that went before them have no exclusive monopoly on talent.

The prize money for young horses starting out in Britain is way behind where it needs to be. Bumpers, maiden, novice and beginner races needs particular attention if a pool of good young horses is to be attracted to race there. Average horses in their first season in Ireland can probably win the double of what their British counterparts can earn.
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I do have to agree with much of what you say Grey. For your average ITV viewer who is not a committed racing fan (yet like many enjoys the spectacle of Cheltenham) the Irish takeover is a bit of a turn off. With the number of Irish winners , Irish Trainers, Irish Jockeys and Irish presenters you would be forgiven for thinking you had switched on to RTE covering Punchestown. Obviously, with lockdown this year, Cheltenham was never going to be the same, but if racing is to prosper, the general public and occasional racegoer in Britain need horses, characters and an industry they can more relate to..

I am not sure how the British Racing industry responds, but I am quite certain that such a situation would never be allowed to continue if the tables were turned.
 
It isn't just the lack of winners that should be a concern for those involved in British racing. In many cases they weren't competitive. The champion trainer Paul Nicholls had one second, Next Destination, and two thirds, Shantou Flyer and Bravemansgame.

Alan King's best finish was a 5th. Likewise for Nigel Twiston Davies. Philip Hobb's best was 9th. Donald McCain the leading trainer in the north of England didn't even have a runner.

On the subject of runners,

W Mullins 55
D Foster 32
H de Bromhead 23
N Henderson 23
P Nicholls 20
J O'Brien 15

Dan Skelton has saddled 188 individual horses this season but had only 13 deemed worth running at the festival.

At the four sales of point to point horses before Christmas, eleven horses fetched over 200k. Of these, two are now with Mullins, two with Foster/Elliott, and one each with de Bromhead, Cromwell and Mouse Morris. I am unaware of where two have gone to, with only two that I know of having gone to Britain, one to Henderson and one to Rose Dobbin.

The biggest reason for this disparity has to be prizemoney. For instance, over the Christmas /New Year period there were two Grade 1 novice hurdles run on each side of the Irish Sea.

Challow £23848 and Tolworth £19932 to the winners in the UK while the Future Champions & Lawlors of Naas were both worth 47200 euro (around 40k stg) to the winners.

At the lower level, tomorrow's maiden hurdle at Downpatrick is worth 11800 euro to the winner, while those at Chepstow and Carlisle are worth £3769.

Unless prizemoney in Britain improves, the situation is only going to get worse and given the numbers of horses exported from Ireland to Britain each year that will in turn lead to issues for grassroots breeders in Ireland.

I don't believe that the answer lies in reducing the graded programme and increasing the number of handicaps. There has to be races for the better horses to aim at. In the late 1980s, when Irish National Hunt racing was at its lowest ebb, (a total of two winners at Cheltenham over the period 87-89) the Irish programme consisted almost entirely of handicaps and the introduction of good graded races in the 90s gave Irish owners an incentive to keep their better horses rather than sell them on, as had been a feature through most of the previous decade.
 
There’s no arguing with that, chronic. How on earth it’s worthwhile trundling a horse across the country to try and win £3 K is a mystery to me. Profit can only come from betting and that means the skulduggery door swings more and more open.
 
It can't be the prize money - the balance is more the other way on the flat.
The reason, (imo) Arabs don't do jumps racing.
 
Nothing blind at all; just a recognition that (relative to flat racing) there's more invested in NH in Ireland.
 
an capall said:
Interesting comments from NJH after Shishkins race, " May run him again if we can find something at Aintree or Sandown."

£30K vs E100K at Punchestown. What am I missing??
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'Hassle' of paperwork/cost, jockey booking if C19 restrictions in place then, horse doesn't like travelling., might not get ground over there, more chance of getting beaten and not winning 100k potentially after all the 'hassle' of getting out there.
 
There are always cycles of domination of one party or another in all spheres of life. A lot of Nicholls' big guns didn't turn up for whatever reason, although had 2 wins, 2 seconds and 2 thirds, Henderson had some disappointments as well, Tizzard very quiet, O'Brien nothing and yet stable flying domestically, McCain/Fry nothing, Jonjo one winner, Skeltons' nothing - most of the big 'English/UK ' yards either didn't have a lot of runners or anything good enough. There is too much racing in the UK, irrespective of any argument in favour, how that is solved is probably for better men than me, or people not to be sexist, but Ireland has smaller land mass/population and could not support probably the intensive nature of fixtures in the UK and that may be a part of the reason for this week, but a lot of the UK 'big guns' didn't turn up or just don't exist right now.
 
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