TED TALKS

DISRUPTION

We need to channel our inner Mike Repole, writes Ted Voute

ON RECENT podcasts and TDN interviews I have heard many heart-felt and self-effacing comments from participants wishing to improve our industry, in particular an interview by Nick Luck with Mike Repole. It made me look at the British racing industry and ask, where is our own Mike Repole?

Love him or hate him he is a disrupter. Are we too “British” to have a disrupter around us? Or are we too scared to upset the apple cart?

Certainly, my days with the TBA taught me to join forces in opinion, and that racing as a whole is stronger fighting together rather than singularly.

But I’d like to stimulate some disruption and nominate the people

who exist to continue airing their forthright views . As Ed Harper said in his interview in the TDN – we need to take a look at ourselves and take a view as to how we do things: prepare foals, at our animal husbandry, and our horse management. We need to bring ourselves into the modern era and keep reviewing whether we are doing things right.

Harper is a mini disrupter – from time to time so is David Redvers, while Eddie O’Leary and Roger O’Callaghan will stir things up in Ireland.

I think it’s a good thing – all you need to do is listen to Jamie Railton’s podcast interview with O’Callaghan to realise that all these guys want a better industry.

We have been playing the long game, waiting for the unifying industry bodies and learning not

to speak out as we play the game of dominoes hoping that we don’t knock each other down.

But, in reality, all we are doing is smoothing over the big problems that need sorting out.

Self governance is where it starts.

We can all do better and we need more interviews with industry people who are passionate and young, and we need to learn from their criticisms. I don’t agree with everything everyone says, but discussion stimulates thought and ultimately action.

I am all for the Thoroughbred Group representing the many stakeholders – as long as it has some teeth and is not frightened to stamp its feet a little instead of trying to pacify everyone.

Through the TBA, I learnt that Julian Richmond Watson CBE was a good chairman – he let everyone have a say and then represented the majority opinion rather than his own, which is very important, but he’s not a disrupter.

Peter Savill, who does have disruptive tendencies, has shaken up the racing programme and forced the idea of Premier racing.

I fear it is not quite as he envisioned, but at least there is collaborative movement within the British racing industry.

The Jockey Club’s racecourse arm, which operates under royal charter, has made great strides to reveal its media rights income of £45/50 million revenue, and has opened its books to 120 separate facets of the industry to explain how it accounts and spends income streams, promising to use 60 per cent of media money for prizemoney.

Maybe through The Jockey Club we will eventually see the levels of income from the World Pool?

Each sector needs to self review where they are and how they contribute. Harper’s further suggestion is that we need to tighten up presentation of horses at the sale, raise the bar from the smallest to the biggest farms, and find new innovative ways to promote our bloodstock maybe using AI in the future.

Sales consignors need to club together and improve the level of horsemanship required to present horses for sale.

Perhaps they should look to the showing sector of the horse world for experienced show people who add value to the horses they are showing rather, than being satisfied with using untrained students who tend to learn the craft whilst at a sale.

Trade organisations are providing educational platforms, which should be used even more extensively and trainees should earn certificates to create a higher knowledge of welfare for both humans and horses.

Horse ownership needs to need to be more vocal.

The UK’s current biggest disrupter is Kia Joorabchian, who readily hires, fires and switches trainers, and is openly forthright in opinion.

He comes from the sports world and has very clear expectations as to how his horses are trained and where they run. He will benefit the industry long term, but is not admired by all.

THE ROA pacifies its board members by providing lots of useful discounts on entries, and does fight for better facilities. The board has changed since the Rachel Hood days or those of Sir Eric Parker.

The ROA shouldn’t be frightened to collaborate with owner-breeders more openly and to make more noise regarding prize-money.

Many critics felt the nature of horse trading stopped owners from getting involved.

We’ve spent years setting up codes of practice and panels to report wrong doing and, from where I stand, I believe we operate a very clean business.

Journalist Lee Mottershead did us a favour as a disrupter and, together with the BHA inquirer, rattled a few cages. Not much came out that ended in prosecution, but the industry put in place a well thoughtout monitoring procedure and a route to report unusual activity.

Our next project to face head on is animal and human welfare – drug testing humans and horses before we end up with a similar situation as in the US with vocal animal activists.

We need to engage by showcasing the good care we provide, while also educating the public as to what happens with catastrophic injuries and the care taken to prevent them.

We need to show everybody how theses horses are fed diets that are intensely researched to produce highly tuned and sound racehorses from birth.

Every aspect has to look inwards, including journalism and we need to ask if newspapers only reporting the sensationalised stories because it sells papers? Investigative journalism can still highlight success stories, as well as the disasters.

In conclusion I am just trying to point out that each and every one of us can do things better

Get better results and breed faster racehorses.

In every sector now we try to fight for the best and make things more transparent. We will never be perfect because there is no finite end, but we can all make changes in each sector to ensure the industry is more successful and appealing to the outside world.

Our fans have evolved from an aristocratic fan base to a diverse and sometimes younger fan base who might have an attention span of two minutes on a Tik Tok video.

Racing can compete – a race does not take much longer and could have a variety of gambling opportunities.

Which horse breaks first from the gate? Which horses finishes first? Does horse A beat horse B? Who is first second or third? Who is last?

We need to broaden our gambling products to make it more attractive.

Denise Coates, the chairwomen of Bet 365, earns £270 million a year, meaning that the tax man earns more than the Jockey Club does in media rights!

Stallion games

THIS SPRING successful and invogue stallions received up to 400 applications for 140-180 places, the ever-growing polaristion in the stallion market evident.

Mares who can’t get into these highly popular stallions have a reduced chance of success as breeders are forced to use “chancey” stallions who might be on the rise or are “longer distance” sires.

Stallion masters with the in-demand sires found it incredibly difficult to assign every good breeder with their requests.

No one saw this polarisation coming as strongly as it has; if they did the stud fees would have been higher.

Assigning nominations has changed from a “first-come-first-served-basis” to only the best mares on the application list getting a place.

Some studs have even used their “stallion of the moment” to fill a lesser sire by selling nominations in pairs. All of the above is just a way to fill stallions and it tends to piss people off.

But who are we to tell stallion masters how to manage their stallions? It’s so difficult to get a good one and stay at the top of the sires’ lists.