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NZ Racing and Breeding News – 12 May 2019
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The Bostonian wins Group 1 Doomben 10,000
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Purple Sector ends autumn on winning note
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Sleeping Beauty claims deserved stakes victory
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Zacada back to best in Rotorua Cup
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Catalyst ready for juvenile winter features.
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Waikato Stud wins gold for its Stallion Brochure
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Pike aiming for more Queensland glory
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Talented Pike pair head overseas
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Trans-Tasman tilt for Te Akau
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NZ Racing and Breeding News – 10 May 2019
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Draw gives Savvy Oak shot at G1 SA Derby
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Piriaka too tough at Woodville
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The Shark is back
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Milestone wins beckon leading trainer at Rotorua
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Sandown winner Asgard Massif on the market
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Matamata double for Noble
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Duffers Creek top of Fannin’s list
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Wexford target Rotorua features
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Ghibellines heads White Robe Lodge roster
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Belonging to the Barlows
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By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Damon Thayer and Liza Hendricks have been named to the board of directors of Amplify Horse Racing, the organization announced Monday. “Since leaving the Kentucky Senate last year, I have been looking for a way to give back to the racing industry that I am passionate about,” Thayer said. “Amplify Horse Racing's mission is much-needed and worthy of support, and I am honored to have been asked to join the board and look forward to working with the team to connect young people to careers in the industry.” Hendricks founded Wanamaker's, one of the first online Thoroughbred auction platforms in the U.S., which was acquired by Inglis in 2024, and she now serves on the Board of Inglis Digital USA. “The future of Thoroughbred racing depends on our ability to engage, educate, and inspire the next generation,” Hendriks said. “Amplify is doing that work in a meaningful, modern way, and I'm excited to contribute my experience to help grow its impact.” Amplify Horse Racing is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that connects youth and young adults to education and career pathways in the Thoroughbred industry through classroom education, mentorship programming, and immersive experiences. For more information about Amplify, visit www.amplifyhorseracing.org. The post Thayer, Hendriks Appointed to Amplify Board appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Chief Stipe · Posted
Still no Stewards vision posted for the meeting at Te Rapa 10 days ago. -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Tough at the top? Try the view from the base of the pyramid, where we begin our quest for value among sires already at stud in Kentucky. We have dealt with the rookies separately, as a case apart. But while many of those standing at four figures are also younger horses, essentially unproven, their commercial luster has already faded. As we keep noting, the claim that new sires represent your only chance of catching the next Into Mischief falls apart when the same horses are abandoned precisely as they are about to reveal their prowess. Into Mischief himself only dipped into this bottom tier, with a career low fee of $7,500, for his third and fourth seasons. In principle, then, all we need is the courage of our convictions. The trouble is that the horses languishing at this level may never get adequate traction to prove you right or wrong. After all, it can feel like a false economy to skimp on fees, when the ensuing costs of keep and prep will be essentially the same for a foal by Gun Runner. As a result, it becomes harder and harder to recommend horses already slithering down the scree of the marketplace. Yes, they may have been unfairly judged, and yes, we might yet be rewarded for our fidelity by breeding a nice runner. But the numbers, in the end, will see them crushed. Nonetheless, we must try to find one or two that might turn the tanker round. We can also highlight a few that have at least put “hoofs on the ground,” in the winner's circle. These range from horses whose first juveniles have shown promise, to one or two veterans whose resume is such that they could even prove a mare at a bargain rate. The latter is admittedly a narrow category, comprising stalwarts that have carved out a viable niche in the Bluegrass without ever cracking the commercial code. And it has actually lost a couple of excellent options to regional programs over the past year: Collected to California, and Cross Traffic to Virginia. But THE FACTOR is certainly a high achiever to find trading at just $5,000, his fourth consecutive cut from $17,500 in 2022. Few breeders appear to have responded, his typical book seemingly stuck in the 30s, and he is close to commercial irrelevance as he turns 18. In fact, he only had three yearlings offered at auction in 2025. But end users will know that he has turned out a total of 45 stakes winners, at 5% of named foals, just a tick short of the ratio achieved by stallions as expensive as Nyquist, Good Magic or Practical Joke. In fairness, these elevate themselves with a far superior impact at a higher level, but if you simply want to put a winner under your mare, The Factor stands alone in Kentucky with a stellar 68% of named foals finding their way to the winner's circle. Another with 5% black-type winners, to named foals, is TAKE CHARGE INDY. From limited opportunity, he seldom lets his noble family down and it was characteristic of his work for the $60,000 yearling Take Charge Milady to emerge as a dual stakes winner/Grade I runner-up this year, while Indy Bay, even cheaper at $19,000, won the GII Charles Town Oaks. Very solid at $7,500, and likewise JIMMY CREED, that dependable source of one-turn action. Horses like this pay their way on the racetrack, which is just how things are supposed to be. And you can see MO TOWN ending up in a pretty similar place after another year of understated achievement, his eight stakes winners including a couple at Grade II level in Mystic Lake and Classic Mo Town. Still only 12, he covered 99 mares last spring and if his commercial profile is by now limited, at $7,500 he certainly measures up in terms of what should be the most important service provided by any stallion. Divisidero | EquiSport DIVISIDERO is now being virtually given away at just $3,500, having never really been given the chance he deserved. He's typical of the wholesome goods–sound and classy on the track, from one of the great families–that can't get past the fast-buck, herd mentality of commercial breeding. Fact is, he's had a couple of stakes winners from a grand total of 36 starters across three crops, so hopefully he could yet produce a fairytale for somebody out there who can only run to a sheaf of banknotes, wrapped in an elastic band, to cover a cherished mare. In the following intake, COUNTRY HOUSE is also being overlooked because of a tiny footprint. His debut crop of juveniles unsurprisingly made little impact (six winners from 15 starters), but with maturity and a second turn they have hinted that this grievously underrated runner is again punching above weight at $5,000. His 16 individual winners this year come from just 25 starters, and no fewer than half a dozen have been placed in black-type company, including Churchill stakes winner Bridle a Butterfly. As for those “bubble” stallions now at their most vulnerable, their books and fees sliding as their first runners approach the gate, the hour is at hand for fidelity to be rewarded. GREATEST HONOUR didn't really pass his first test at the sales, but at $7,500 that doesn't disqualify his stock from getting to work with the tremendous genes that underpinned those glimpses of racetrack brilliance. He has significant numbers behind him, and his book held up well even last spring, at 74. One who has really nailed it so far is MYSTIC GUIDE, at $7,500 somehow trading at half his opening fee despite processing 55 of 62 yearlings at $62,737 and entertaining another full book last spring. Himself hardly precocious, typical of a son of Ghostzapper, he may not have many sprint maiden winners at Keeneland next April. But he has a fine pedigree and, with that loaded pipeline, looks in an extremely strong position to justify perseverance now. HIGHLY MOTIVATED, at the same fee, made only a steady sales debut, but I retain the highest hopes for this Into Mischief half-brother to two Grade I winners. He had speed to burn, breaking the Keeneland track record as a juvenile with a 96 Beyer, and is one to watch in the freshman tables. Of course, he will be up against rivals with ludicrous volume behind them. But hopefully by this stage people know to judge merit by ratios rather than mere accumulation. On those terms, he remains a confident choice to shine with his first juveniles, and time may show that this was the moment–just as it was with his sire–to double down on Highly Motivated. That can only be guesswork, of course, as it must be for all of us. So we'll reserve the podium for horses that have at least put some horses through the gate. Apologies, in the meantime, to the many worthy animals that remain overlooked. This series is only ever a single, subjective opinion on paper values. Only you know the size and shape of your mare, and her performance strengths–complementing which should be the starting point for every mating. VALUE PODIUM BRONZE THOUSAND WORDS Pioneerof the Nile–Pomeroys Pistol (Pomeroy) Spendthrift $7,500 On the face of it, rather a surprise to find this fellow slipping within reach from $12,500 last year. That's doubtless a reflection of a pedestrian yield for his latest yearlings, but those emerged from a crop of just 34 live foals preceding the big impression made by his first juveniles last year. Nor has it helped his cause that his fertility has been a little ordinary, but this fee amply compensates for any such bumps on the road. Thousand Words has so far assembled eight stakes winners from 136 starters in his first two crops, including the $2,500 yearling Vodka With a Twist, a GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies runner-up whose latest near miss in graded company was by just a head in the GII Raven Run Stakes. That leaves GII Davona Dale Stakes winner The Queens M G as his solitary graded winner to date, well worth the extra outlay as a $3,500 yearling! His own physique qualified him as a $1-million yearling and his family has continued to flourish, with his half-sister producing the Grade I scorer Faiza (Girvin). They are out of the most proficient mare by Pomeroy, multiple GSW/dual Grade I runner-up Pomeroys Pistol, so this early success not hard to explain. Thousand Words having quickly established an ability to pass on his own precocity–The Queens M G broke her maiden on debut at the Keeneland spring meet before adding both the Schuylerville and GIII Adirondack Stakes at Saratoga–there will surely remain plenty of commercial breeders willing to get involved at a fee like this. The Queens M G | Sarah Andrew SILVER HONOR A.P. Honor Code–Hollywood Story (Wild Rush) Lane's End $7,500 It must be conceded that this horse finds himself at a crossroads. He has been underrated throughout, first as a runner and now as a sire. He didn't always make life easy for himself on the track, but the one time they had a clear sight of each other, he gave the Horse of the Year an unequivocal beating. Now he requires our indulgence once again, because he really doesn't have the numbers behind him (just 19 mares last spring, poor chap) to capitalize on a quietly productive start at stud. But that's the whole conundrum of “value.” Honor A.P. has now been clipped to half his opening fee, which was itself tremendously generous, despite giving every indication that he can replicate his quality with seven black-type scorers from 94 starters. Among second-crop sires in Kentucky only Vekoma (6.6%) and Complexity (6.5%) can beat Honor A.P.'s 5.9% stakes winners to named foals. That's well ahead of Tiz the Law and McKinzie, who are rightly lauded for their superior depth in the best company, but who also benefited from far greater opportunity. Honor A.P. has always had glamor. He was an $850,000 yearling out of a dual Grade I winner. And from limited chances he is producing some pretty flashy talent: Grade II winner Margie's Intention; a son beaten a nose in the G2 UAE Derby; and two of the summer's most impressive juvenile stake winners in Romeo (Bashford Manor) and runaway Saratoga scorer A.P. Kid. His second crop was further decorated a few days ago by the four-length Oaklawn stakes success of Counting Stars, so there's a surprising level of speed and precocity emerging from just 55 foals born in 2023. His own template suggests that there can only be more to come, and actually the handful of yearlings that found their way to auction this year maintained a degree of allure (one brought $195,000). So while Honor A.P. may call for a degree of courage, in the world we live in, he has surely earned our perseverance. Honor A.P. | Horsephotos GOLD BEAU LIAM Liam's Map–Belle of Perintown (Dehere) Airdrie $7,500 In contrast with the horse below him on the podium, this one is pressing all the right commercial buttons. We have barely glimpsed what he can do, Beau Liam having launched his first runners only this year. But 22 of them have won, a tally exceeded only by class leader Yaupon–who has fielded 82 starters for his 30 winners, compared with 54 to date for Beau Liam. The word was out by last spring, when Beau Liam covered 94 mares, up from 38 the previous year. And with two stakes winners by July, plus juvenile sales up to $300,000, Beau Liam saw plenty of demand for the few members of his second crop to make it to auction. Ten sold (of a dozen offered) for an average $132,300. Some yield, for a $6,000 conception fee! And an absolute object lesson, in terms of what I keep saying about keeping the faith with bubble sires. If your judgement is right, the time you're really going to get paid is when everyone else has nervously sidled away. The highlight of this knockout return to the sales (had batted a rock-solid $53k with his first crop) was a $525,000 colt at the September Sale. He was out of a $17,000 mare. This, in other words, could be exactly the kind of stallion that commercial breeders of modest means are always looking for. On the track, Beau Liam was a true meteor, bright but brief, derailing on his fourth start after three explosive wins. No horse in history has broken his maiden in a faster time over six furlongs at Churchill. He clocked a 106 Beyer on his second start, beaten only by Jackie's Warrior (107) among 2021 sophomores at seven furlongs and he then eked out a 107 of his own, romping over 6 1/2 furlongs at the Spa. His half-sister is the graded stakes-winning granddam of this year's turf star Fionn (Twirling Candy) and they are out of a GII Silverbulletday Stakes winner, whose own granddam had won the GI Fantasy Stakes. Everything is in place, then. Above all, Beau Liam stands at one of the very last farms that protects its clients from catalogue inundation while still giving them every chance at the fee. Many of those clients will have feared that they had missed the boat with this horse at $6,000. They will be pleasantly astonished to be able to get aboard at such a marginal increase. The trajectory may well get steeper from here. The post Kentucky Value Sires for 2026, Part 2: Sires Under $10k appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
During the Second World War, in the early years of what has grown into a world-renowned breeding operation, the Aga Khan III leased Barton Stud, not far outside Newmarket, where his resident stallions included Dastur and Umidwar. It is a link that echoes in Barton's new recruit, Scorthy Champ, whose arrival sees a return to the stallion business for the farm owned for exactly a century by the Broughton family and run by Tom Blain. Skip back four generations in Scorthy Champ's female line and you will find the name Sharamana, a Darshaan half-sister to Shergar, who was of course bred by the Aga Khan Studs and won the G3 Prix Minerve. (In fact, nine generations back you'll also find the aforementioned 1934 Champion Stakes winner Umidwar.) Along the way, Herbertstown Stud bought Sharamana's daughter Sharafanya and bred from her the Noverre mare Ceist Eile, who in turn produced Scorthy Champ's dam Fidaaha, bred by Jim Bolger. Noble lineage aside, it would have been a bit of a stretch to make a case for Fidaaha's entry to stud on the back of her ordinary race record. But the 46-rated daughter of New Approach had been a €200,000 Goffs Orby yearling when sold by Bolger's Redmondstown Stud, and Tally-Ho Stud took a chance on her at €15,000 when put back through the ring two years later. Add several sprinklings of magic Mehmas dust and sure enough Fidaaha has proved to be quite the dab hand at producing black-type winners. First came Malavath, winner of the G2 Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte and half a length behind Pizza Bianca when second in the G1 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. She was later bought for €3.2m by Moyglare Stud, having started out as a £29,000 yearling. Her full-brother Knight then proved that this was no fluke by winning his first two starts, including the G3 Horris Hill Stakes, and later finishing second to Angel Bleu in the G2 Celebration Mile. Scorthy Champ, Fidaaha's fourth foal, also by Mehmas, is her first at the highest level. He won the G1 Goffs Vincent O'Brien National Stakes on just his third start for Joseph O'Brien, beating subsequent G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains winner Henri Matisse, having been third behind that same colt in the G2 Futurity Stakes. Scorthy Champ, who raced in the purple and gold colours also carried by the Wexford GAA team, raced for Rectory Road Holdings Ltd, Barry Fowler and Annemarie O'Brien, and the O'Briens will remain supporters of his at stud. “He's a horse that we've been following for a couple of years. He was obviously an incredibly good two-year-old, he won the National Stakes, but I never thought we'd get him because, being a new stallion operation, I just thought he was going to be too good,” explains Tom Blain, who is now leasing the entire 300-acre Barton Stud and does not hide his delight at being able to add a stallion element to what is already a thriving boarding farm and sales consigning business. “It was only towards the end of this year, after speaking with Joseph, that we realised that there probably was a deal to be done. There were a number of other people interested, but Joseph was very helpful in helping us get the horse and was very keen to support us.” In more recent years, Night Shift stood at Barton before joining Coolmore, and Sir Philip Oppenheimer's Most Welcome was also in residence, but still two decades have passed since then, and with Blain's more commercially-focused tenure of the farm close to Bury St Edmunds, returning to the stallion market was, he says, “the obvious next step”. “Barton's got a rich history of standing stallions and I've been running the stud for 13 years. Ever since I first came here, it became apparent to me that we could do it, and it's something I've always wanted to do. It's taken me 10 years or so to build the business up, we've got the consigning, we've got a great team of clients here that support us, we've got amazing mares,” he says. “We've looked really hard [for a stallion]. We've looked at a lot of horses, we've travelled all over the place – France a number of times. We haven't got the big budgets of some places but we're starting and it's something that I want to do more of, so it's a good beginning.” It has been a good year on the track for horses bred at Barton, led by the Group/Grade 1 winners Ciecero's Gift and Choisya, bred respectively by Fiona Williams and Rabbah Bloodstock. “I've been blown away by the clients that we do have,” says Blain, who has since 2017 served on the board of trustees of the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association (TBA). “The support that they've already shown, they've all sort of jumped in behind this horse. I feel very lucky in that regard. A lot of the clients have become my friends and they've seen the progression of the business. It means a lot that they're coming in and supporting us.” He continues, “I started off breeding from one mare. I know how hard it is, it's only getting harder. I just want to help British breeders do as well as they can and then we all do well. It's as simple as that. It is an industry that has its many struggles, but I'm an optimist, always have been.” The TBA chairman Philip Newton has warned frequently in the past year of the potential of a “catastrophic collapse” for British breeding in light of reduced foal crops and a falling number of breeders. Blain, while admitting that it is worrying when looking at the figures, says, “What I try to think is that the people who do the job well will survive and be good at it. And I think if you can mate your mares properly, and you look after the horses properly and you raise the horses properly, there is money to be made in this industry. “I think the people that don't do those things, they'll be the people that struggle first. Whether we can help everybody, I don't know. But certainly with my TBA hat on, I think what is encouraging is schemes like GBB [Great British Bonus] have been amazing. And you see as a consigner, as a breeder, they really help. So I do think we can find a solution. We have to work together, as everybody says.” Following a year in which only three Flat sires retired to stud in Britain, there is renewed optimism, with eight new recruits to the UK for 2026, including the G2 Richmond Stakes winner Royal Scotsman, who heralds the entrance of Genesis Green Stud to the stallion market. Though Barton has an important heritage in this field, for Blain, this is an exciting new venture, and the amenable and scopey Scorthy Champ is already playing his part well, even in the early weeks of his residency. “It means a lot to me. It means a lot to the team,” Blain says. “The day he arrived, it's a different feel to have a stallion with a stallion yard back open. I think it's how a stud should be run, especially a stud of our size. We've got loads of space. “I just want to knuckle down and give it our best shot, and to give him the best shot.” The post ‘The Obvious Next Step’: Barton Back in the Stallion Business with Scorthy Champ appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article -
By Wandering Eyes · Posted
Each Christmas, Kempton hosts the most important day of jump racing in the British calendar outside the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals. It's a racecourse synonymous with the great names of this sport – Kauto Star, Desert Orchid, Wayward Lad, One Man. Yet Friday's compelling edition of the King George VI Chase crouches under extinction's peak – and we've learned it's been huddled in that brace position for the past seven years due to the wilful actions of its owners, the Jockey Club. Most people thought any immediate threat to Kempton, caused by the Club putting the whole site forward for redevelopment to Spelthorne Borough Council in January 2017, had elapsed. That proposal was triggered by changes to Britain's national planning policy, enabling previously developed land to be considered within green-belt submissions. When news hit the press 11 months later that the site had been categorised as “strongly performing” in the green belt, bulldozers appeared stood down. Of course, we weren't naïve enough to imagine the subject wouldn't ever be raised again. We heard the persistent rumours. But we didn't realise the implosion could be inescapably sparked at any point in the subsequent decade via further favourable change to planning law. The Jockey Club had however already set the mechanism. Our misunderstanding was permitted to perpetuate. An announcement from then chief steward Sandy Dudgeon in February 2020 stated: “We have now put forward another option alongside the original full site for their consideration. This would involve just a proportion of the available land there and allow Jump and All-Weather Flat racing to continue.” (My underlining.) At the time, this news was received as the racecourse having been “saved”. This article in The Sun is typical. The Jockey Club would have seen how their statement was interpreted and did nothing to provide the full context, even though the words I've underlined – read with the understanding we now possess – implicitly acknowledged the original proposal remained live but dormant. Yet this wasn't known for a fact until June of this year, when exclusively revealed by the same newspaper's Jack Keene. Despite the scale and intensity of outcry about Kempton's proposed sale in early 2017, the following September, the Jockey Club signed what amounts to a 12-year option with developers Redrow to build houses on all or part of the site. The obliteration of the racecourse can thereby be sparked at any time, in effect until 2030. When Dudgeon spoke, the Jockey Club believed the existing planning landscape allowed little hope for its original proposal. Viewed from our perspective, however, its 2020 announcement misleads by omission. External factors, initiated by a property company with no interest in the sport's future, will now determine whether – in its owner's words – this “highly profitable racecourse” will be consigned to history. And that's the element rightly angering so many. In the summer of 2022, still no version of the Kempton submissions appeared in Spelthorne's draft Local Plan. To this day local residential opposition endures. Yet the world is changed. Labour's manifesto included an ambition to build 1.5m homes in five years. Their planning and infrastructure bill received Royal assent last Thursday. Five-time King George winner Kauto Star and Ruby Walsh | Racingfotos Kempton's future seems likely to rest on what remains of local powers to object. Whilst Spelthorne Council reiterated its opposition to development on “strategically important green belt” in recent days, in April 2027 it will be submerged in the new West Surrey unitary authority. Policy change could easily follow. The terms of the agreement between the Jockey Club and Redrow would also need to be met. It is reasonable to surmise those T&Cs might have been updated since September 2018 – commonplace with such options – and not least since Labour won its landslide victory in July last year. A minimum-value clause would always have been necessary. It's not outlandish to suppose there was some sort of condition, at least originally, relating to guaranteed planning permission for a replacement all-weather track in Newmarket. The FAQs accompanying the original announcement stated the Club would “require” this proposed new racecourse “to be operational before racing stopped at Kempton Park”. It is surely therefore significant that “presentations to Jockey Club members and various racing stakeholders around the proposed new racecourse, which would be situated on the large expanse of land behind the grandstands at the Rowley Mile” were delivered in May, again according to Keene. This Newmarket-centric retrospective divide-and-conquer strategy is effective. Some Flat trainers based there welcomed their own future transport and staffing costs tumbling. No surprise therefore to witness British racing's most vocal and influential figures all quiet over there, despite the potential loss of a swathe of gallops and disruption while construction takes place. Meanwhile, if you're a Flat trainer based in the west or south, your costs conversely soar – and you don't already have Chelmsford down the road, as those in Newmarket do. In already hard times, it is no exaggeration to suggest some businesses may fail or else be forced to relocate. If you're a Jumps trainer, bad luck but you'll always have Cheltenham and Aintree. Last weekend, amid what has felt like a rollercoaster Club communications strategy, new chief executive Jim Mullen outlined his vision. He hinted at an imminent deal to finance capital investment at those flagship tracks but also inevitable job losses across the group. This came days after his Epsom team unveiled an exciting £6m investment in 2026 for their Flat-racing jewel, the Derby. But it took a question from the Racing Post's Bill Barber to prompt the assertion: “Kempton is out of my hands.” As Mullen's June appointment post-dated all known machinations, he was washing them of responsibility. “Post the investment, when you go to Aintree and Cheltenham you should be able to see the difference,” he declared. “It will bring a better experience, which will be up there with some of the best sporting experiences in the UK.” Shame there will be less to see when you get there. Kempton is unique among British Grade One Jump courses in its ability to provide viable ground on which trainers would choose to run high-class horses in the depths of winter – which climate-change experts say are becoming warmer and wetter. Hosting the King George VI Chase at Sandown, or Aintree (or Ascot, in the unlikely event it's sold) would make that race more like the following day's Welsh National at Chepstow and less like the Savills Chase at Leopardstown. This critical nuance is still undervalued or inadequately understood by the Jockey Club. Such a King George is far less likely to be on the agenda of a genuine Gold Cup contender. Ditto a Ryanair hopeful. Ditto a relocated Christmas Hurdle for a putative Champion Hurdler, or a relocated Kauto Star or Wayward Lad for a Festival-bound novice chaser. If Britain's best horses run in fewer numbers over Christmas, fans will vote with their feet and wagering apps. Attendances and betting turnover will fall further. This spiral heads only one way. Ireland already outperforms Britain in terms of the proportion of high-quality Jump horses each country currently trains – a trend that's merely slowed at best, according to Timeform data. British-based investors are increasingly choosing to deploy their horses in Ireland, where the overheads for training are cheaper to boot. In short, for Jump racing the closure of Kempton risks both fatally undermining customer demand for the British road to Cheltenham and Aintree and further nudging the supply dial in favour of Ireland. This from a racecourse group whose business model heavily relies on the continuing success of the Festival and Grand National. Go figure. Yet when we question the accountability of its processes, we get a patrician pat on the head. “I have always been a huge advocate for the Jockey Club and what it does, so any decisions we have made have always been in the best interests of racing,” Paul Fisher, its chief executive from 2017 to 2020, said only this week. That's “any decisions”, folks. Such quasi-religious zeal necessarily involves the Club marking its own homework. The terms of its Royal Charter require it to “act in the long-term good of British racing in everything we do”. Who defines what's in “the long-term good of British racing”? The Jockey Club, stupid. Bar Boxing Day, for many Kempton is a soulless track whose worth equates to driving betting turnover and media rights. Attendances at such meetings are nearly non-existent – a fact surely connected with how awful the customer experience is. Yet it is close to the M25 and has its own train station, 40 minutes from Waterloo, connecting it to the largest (or second largest, depending on your measure) city in Europe. There is a strong argument the track is unloved because the Jockey Club simply didn't work hard enough on basics like engaging the local community or after-work crowd. They did once run a horserace to music, though. Did external stakeholder consultation take place prior to the 2017 announcement, given the impact Kempton's closure will have on contingent businesses? Given the widespread shock generated, I doubt it. Was any attempt made to quantify, via commercial analysis, the steadily accreting long-term impact on British Jump racing? This in terms of high-quality, Festival-bound horses at the key customer-driving, narrative-generating period of Christmas? In terms of developing nascent high-quality jumpers season-round? And in influencing British owner decisions on where to patriate their investments? We don't know. The sport should demand to see it, if it exists. Back in 2017, things appeared more positive for British Jump racing than they are now (though the cracks were starting to show). This returns us to the folly of the Jockey Club having tied its own hands over Kempton until 2028 at least, with no knowledge of the headwinds to come. What's left to do? The serfs – including vocal critics Nicky Henderson, Paul Nicholls and Alan King – must make our democratic voices heard in the arena of whatever remains of Britain's planning process, if the time comes when Redrow exercises its 2018 option. For those not prepared to allow the linchpin of British Jump racing to be removed without fight, frustratingly it's all we can do. If the worst happens and the racecourse is lost, the Club must consult on how and where the money is spent. Back in 2017, the “minimum figure” from the sale was posited as “in excess of £100m” and expected to be “significantly higher… [depending on] a number of factors including how much land is used for housing”. “Every penny of this will be reinvested in the sport,” its communications repeatedly trumpeted. But whose sport? Jump racing would suffer the body blow. Those who still value it should prepare to rail against the money raised being used to cross-subsidise all-weather Flat racing. What about the Jockey Club itself, whose Executive is mostly very different from 2017, but whose nine-strong Board is elected from fewer than 200 enduring invited members “appointed on account of their contribution to horseracing”? How can we know it won't again be this furtive and high-handed in its decision-making processes? The Club drew much praise in 2023 for backing away from its notion to expand to five days the Cheltenham Festival after receiving widespread negative feedback during a consultation process. Its thoughtful changes to the Festival's race programme last year were developed collaboratively. In recent years, its behaviour as a key industry stakeholder has been more reliably consistent with ambitions to maintain and grow quality racing in Britain. When Baroness Dido Harding became Senior Steward last July, she spoke of the need to “listen and learn”. What the sport needs now is further reassurance it won't be wrongfooted, patronised and let down again. The post Op-Ed: Synonymous With Greats, Kempton is Braced for Extinction appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions. View the full article
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