This is the second article in our series on how to develop an edge in the world of racehorse syndication. The first article reviewed the trials, triumphs and tribulations of racehorse syndicates. Future articles cover choosing your trainer and bloodstock agent, and structuring and managing a syndicate.
David Hill is the ex-Chairman of Warwick Racecourse, and has been the founder and manager of a number of racing syndicates – both successful and unsuccessful – over the last three decades. His previous articles for the Property Chronicle covered the historical financing of British Racecourses. In these troubled times he harks back to syndicate experiences in better days and how potentially to seek a competitive advantage.
The first article in this series focused on the slight edge that the Top Brass Racing Syndicate had created in providing a specific purchasing brief to a trainer and bloodstock agent. This profile was for a horse who had previously shown an aptitude for winning and who had the scope to make a chaser. Nenuphar Collonges was followed
While this edge was acquired from applying just a modicum of common sense, other major National Hunt owners have created their own significant competitive advantage by astute means:
JP McManus is the doyen of National Hunt owners. In 2017/18 he had 379 different runners on the Flat and over Jumps in Ireland. Working to a rule of thumb that one in three horses tend to be out of action at any one time suggests he owned at least 500 horses. With training fees averaging £25,000 per year that is an annual investment of some £12.5 million in training costs alone. So, an EDGE might be considered valuable – even essential! I used to think it was solely down to a shotgun purchasing approach at the top end of the market. But you don’t win the Champion Hurdle 9 times in 23 years by just taking aim with a blunderbuss. Istabraq in 1998, 1999 and 2000; Binocular in 2010, Jezki in 2014, Buveur D’Air in 2017 and 2018, Espoir D’Allen in 2019 and just recently Epatante suggest a more targeted approach.
How is it achieved? Nowadays if you are a trainer it is a badge of honour to train a horse for JP, so trainers with a good horse potentially for sale tend to alert him. Wittingly or unwittingly – and somehow you feel ‘unwitting’ is not a word often associated with JP – he has developed a most powerful and widespread array of talent scouts. His EDGE – aside from his purchasing power – is his network of bird-dogs.
Another top owner of Irish NH horses is Rich Ricci, a colourful American banker, whose list of horses reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of the National Hunt sport: Douvain, Vautour, Annie Power, Champagne Fever, Faugheen, Djakadam, Min, Sharjah, Benie Des Dieux to name but a few. His buys 2 and 3 mile hurdlers and 2 mile and long distance chasers – so it is not a matter of specialisation. The horses do have one thing in common however – they have all won Grade 1 races, the pinnacle achievement in the sport.
How does Ricci do it? What is his edge? Well apart from hiring the not inconsiderable talents of Willie Mullins, thirteen times Champion Trainer in Ireland, and spending top dollar, he is remarkably successful. Part of this is down to the bloodstock purchasing expertise of Willie Mullins’ two main agents – Harold Kirk and Pierre Boulard – who stream a constant flow of bigtime winners into the Closutton yard. Somehow a number of the really good ones land up with Mr Ricci – and I reckon it’s down to an EDGE not a fluke. The story, which may well be apocryphal and I have no means of checking, is that all the major stable purchases are first offered to Mr Ricci but if he doesn’t want the horse it is then offered to other owners. If no-one takes up the offer then Mr Ricci guarantees the purchase. If so, Rich Ricci has a very simple EDGE – it’s called ‘first pickings’!
Gigginstown House Stud is owned by Michael O’Leary of
At the Sales a couple of years ago I asked Eddie ‘how does Gigginstown know which Irish point-to-point winners to buy’ – Irish point-to-points being a rich breeding ground of future high-quality chasers – and ‘wasn’t it a bit of a gamble’? ‘Gamble it may be, he replied, but we have our own team of point-to-pointers which we run in the leading races to judge the strength of the new kids on the block. The really good ones we tend to purchase’. For an outfit whose goal is to win Grade 1 races at NH Festivals this bottom up approach typifies its professionalism. Their EDGE is using simple business sense – market segmentation and the adoption of good corporate practices.
When the concept of the Barbury Lions was developed with Alan King (about which more in the fourth article of this series), unknowingly we adopted some of the same principles as Gigginstown. It was however through the other end of the telescope. The principle of segmentation was similar, but the power of top dollar was replaced by a focus on ‘buying cheap and selling dear’. This is all relative but the market for Flat-bred, middle distance 2 year olds is a comparatively cheap entry point. In turn the market for 4 year old hurdlers, if they have shown any promise, can be high margin. For each Syndicate to offset potential injury three horses were purchased and campaigned over two years:
- Barbury Lions 1 produced Master
Blueyes who won two big handicaps on the Flat and the Adonis Hurdle at Kempton before competing with credit in the Triumph Hurdle, the championship race for4 year old hurdlers at the Cheltenham Festival - Barbury Lions 2 featured Coeur de Lion who won major staying handicaps on the Flat, competed at Royal Ascot and then ran well in the Triumph Hurdle. He was sold at the end of his first hurdling season for three times his original purchase price
- Barbury Lions 3’s star was Caspar the Cub whose scintillating turn of foot saw him win three races on the bounce before being sold to the Middle East
- Just when we thought we had achieved a real edge, along came Barbury Lions 4 which, while it is still in being, has as yet to feature a winner. So much for being clever clogs!
- And Barbury Lions 5– well that could top the lot. During their first Flat season the horses won more in prize money than they had originally cost, and in Chinese Whisperer and in particular Trueshan there should be far more to come.
Luck will always have a huge part to play in the purchase of a successful racehorse whether you are a monied individual or relatively small syndicate. But luck can be influenced and in finding your EDGE you can sway the statistics of ownership in your favour.
