Steve Bradley, Royal Ascot-winning owner and breeder
There are various factors behind the loss of talent. Regarding the lack of apprentices being employed, there used to be a small financial incentive for the trainer, which has been removed. When you do get a successful one like Warren Fentiman, although Richard Fahey has first claim, he has an agent working to develop his career so he might have other rides that Richard knows nothing about. Richard Hannon snr used to have five or six apprentices – it was dog eat dog to get the best rides.
For the senior jockeys, look at someone like Tom Eaves. He is driving all around the country and only allowed to ride at one meeting per day, so that limits the earning potential. It’s all very well going to Ayr for 12 rides over three days, but what about when you’re going to Ayr for one or two rides? That’s your day’s work and you’re only getting a few hundred in the kitty and you’re driving four and a half hours each way. Getting a licence to ride in Hong Kong is serious business.
On the horse front, I’ve got an Almanzor who is a three-parts brother to Wootton’Sun [sold to race in Saudi Arabia]. He’s in training and will hopefully run this year. What’s my goal for him? My goal is to get a couple of wins under his belt and if someone comes in with a treasure chest as a three-year-old, they can have him. But I’m not going to take that £200,000 or £300,000 out of the sport – I wouldn’t mind having another broodmare, so I’ll go back in.
Trainers don’t like losing these horses, but they realise there is a limited racing programme for ones like Wootton’Sun. He topped out as a four-year-old and would have ended up in Class 2 handicaps giving a stone and a half to something inferior, likely being devalued. Even Coolmore have cashed in on some of their three-year-olds.
James Ferguson, trainer
“I think the horse talent drain has been going on for a while because of the cost of having a horse in training in this country. The real human talent drain is in jockeys coming through the ranks.
Trainers used to take a percentage of an apprentice jockey’s prize-money and fee and that money was used to pay for the horses to get the kids started. The BHA took that away.
When I started training you had four of five apprentices to choose from, all excellent. Andrew Balding would have five of them, Richard Hannon would have four. We used Dan Muscutt when he was with Andrew, who also had David Probert, Oisin Murphy, Rob Hornby and Kieren Shoemark. Now I couldn’t even name you five apprentices! I have Fred Daly, who rides out for me. It’s about the next generation of jockeys.
If you’ve giving an apprentice their first ride, which owner are you going to ring up and say ‘listen, you’re paying £30,000 a year to have your horse in training, I’m going to put a kid up that’s never ridden before’. You should have horses in the yard that they can ride. But who pays for them? The trainer does. When you have five meetings in one day, you’re almost not running horses because you don’t have a suitable jockey.
Andrew Braithwaite and the team at the British Racing School do a super job, but I think it’s getting harder and harder – the dream of kids becoming jockeys is no longer a dream.
Established jockeys have always gone over to Hong Kong. Someone like Andrea Atzeni is a fantastic rider. He was at that stage where he had to go. For me it’s about the talent coming through.
The drain on horses is always going to happen so long as these horses can win so much more money when they race abroad. I have an owner, Bon Ho – we have had a load of runners in Australia
for him. But why would he spend all that money to then bring them back? So, they stay there. You can run a solid Group 2 stayer out there and they can be a Group 1 horse. William Haggas sent Dubai Honour to Australia and he’s won millions – he’s not running any faster out there! If he was owned by you or me, he’d be staying there and running for that prize-money every week.
Will Douglass, Bloodstock Agent
It is a great feather in the cap of our industry that our horses are so highly sought after. British and Irish racing is incredibly well respected across the globe and unfortunately, we are in a situation where owners do need to sell to keep the ball rolling and reinvest.
Most owners go back in after a good sale. Do they reinvest every penny? No, I don’t think they do, but that’s the same in any industry – if you’re a trader in markets you take out profit. That is how people make their money so you can’t expect them to put everything back in, especially if it’s a hobby. An owner could cover their racing costs for the next four or five years.
I think more horses are being sold abroad privately and while the fillies are a loss for the breeding industry in the long term, they could also go to public auction and be bought by Japan, America and Australia anyway. The sale of colts and geldings take away from our racing, but the majority sold are not stallion prospects.
Hong Kong buyers are after nice, improving handicap/Listed level horses, the same with Australia, but it’s hard to say it’s massively damaging the breed. We must embrace it.
While we don’t want to lose top-quality horses and need our racing to remain competitive while maintaining field sizes, I do not think it’s a drain. It’s a great outlet for European racing and our racehorse owners, especially in Britain and Ireland where the prize-money is not what it should be.
On the people side, it’s not something I know a huge amount about, but I think again it’s the strength and reputation of British racing. Individuals have gone overseas to ride, work, train and be stewards for a very long time, and that’s because of our great grounding. Plenty of these people have essentially been headhunted, but I don’t think it’s a talent drain. The economy isn’t exactly thriving here at the moment so there are other reasons for people wanting to move abroad.
Andrew Braithwaite, Chief Executive, British Racing School
At the British Racing School (BRS), our aim is to produce the world-class riders that our sport needs to flourish, and we support 140 young people into racing yards each year through our foundation course.
There are definitely some wider societal challenges that we face in doing this, one of which is that in an urbanised society fewer young people have access to horses and ponies – we know that around 15% of riding schools closed as a result of Covid. However, despite this, applications to the course are up 18% on last year and we’re expanding our pony racing offering so there is a stronger pathway into racing.
Every day, we see brilliant, talented and enthusiastic young people who are coming into the sport, although retaining them long-term is an issue which comes down to a multitude of things such as pay, work/life balance and culture.
In Britain we can also be a victim of our own success, as the good riders we produce, in partnership with trainers, are employable anywhere in the world and we are seeing an increasing number of
BRS graduates working abroad, particularly in Australia, after they have gained three or four years of experience in the UK.
