TED TALKS... International promotion at Royal Ascot

It is so important that the internationals come to race their horses at Royal Ascot for the continued promotion of British racing, argues Ted Voute

I CONTINUE TO MARVEL at the ability of Royal Ascot to attract varied and consistently high-quality runners from around the world.

It is very important that British racing attracts foreign runners –the knock-on effect promotes our racing and breeding; ultimately overseas owners, it has to be hoped, will invest in our country at many levels.

Ascot has been at the forefront promoting its racing on the world stage and enticed runners this year from Hong Kong, Australia, the US as well as the regular European runners.

This is, slowly, resulting in some US breeders producing horses in Ireland or England and, subliminally, investing in our bloodstock industry; either through ownership or breeding; people want to participate.

Attracting owners to British racing through international runners is one route we haven’t used nearly enough.

The spin off is that there is good and healthy competition to own the best horse in the world on the World Rankings.

Goodwood and York are making inroads and are getting foreign-trained runners to their Festival meetings, too.

Many of the enticement ideas seem to originate from the Breeders’ Cup team through its “win and you’re in” entry scheme

The tremendous hospitality when you attend race meetings abroad is evident – from Hong Kong’s International race meeting and now including Dubai, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Over time this will, hopefully, turn full-circle and winners trained in these countries will have assisted travel or guaranteed places in some of our top races.

Not only have we seen a shift in overseas runners, but increasing the foreign ownership base is growing – the latest important addition to the UK ownership ranks is the Emir of Qatar, who enjoyed instant success at the Royal meeting this year.

This year’s Royal Ascot international winner was the US runner Crimson Advocate, trained by George Weaver and ridden by John Velazquez

American owners have been prominent also this week with runners trained domestically.

Despite our domestic struggles with prize-money, Royal Ascot continues to stand alone as the place everyone wants their horses to compete.

Ascot has become our biggest promoter – and when Their Majesties the King and Queen have a winner in the first year of the new reign it can’t help but promote our industry.

The Royal Family’s attendance every day attracted attention, investment and is, on a wider scale, great for tourism.

It is hard for breeders or bloodstock agents to promote their farm or success without an idea to sell, but Ascot, and especially Royal Ascot, creates stories for the front pages.

British racing and breeding needs all the help it can get, and everyone wants a horse that they have bought or bred to run at Royal Ascot.

The partnership with World Pool, that allows betting pools to co-mingle, and has captured the attention of global bettors.

As these punters begin to follow the form of the top horses it means that not only will they bet more, but will also develop a greater understanding of international racing.

Historically, Hong Kong’s worst betting days in terms of financial turnover have been the international race days as their domestic population didn’t follow the form of the internationals who then travelled to Hong Kong to take on the domestic runners.

If we could use a similar model to increase overseas investment, whether it be through running overseas horses or breeding and training in the UK, we will find a way to increase the prize-money or increase multiple ownership.

British-based trainers left Ascot this year with 24 winners almost twice that of any other country, but the British-breds are still unable to beat the Irish.

However, drilling down into what constitutes a “British-bred” isn’t as simple as where a broodmare band is based, and it should be!

It is misleading that the horses produced by British owners, who foal their stock in other counties, are not classified as GB-bred.

Can I ask that this small issue be changed? It would give a much clearer picture of the breeders based in the UK and support stallions here, particularly the world’s leading sires Dubawi, Frankel and Kingman.