PROFESSIONAL OWNER
FROM the age of 15, from the moment the betting shop door swung open, I had little doubt that I wanted to make a living from backing horses. At the time it seemed a fantastic way to earn serious money and I still wouldn’t swap it for anything. However, as time went by, the intensive nature of some of the work became a little monotonous, and becoming a racehorse owner has definitely spiced up my workload.
I’m proud that I’ve achieved something almost unique in long-term racehorse ownership – I’ve made a substantial profit. The average racehorse owner in the UK suffers a loss of more than 70p in the pound on his investment, so I’ve needed a combination of detailed research into potential purchases, careful choice of trainers and successful punting to achieve a return. The profit isn’t nearly as high per hour worked as from my day-to-day gambling, but the thrill of owning winners, including successes at most of the top meetings, has more than made up for that. I’ve owned the winners of more than 130 races and enjoyed every minute of it.
For simplicity, I’ll refer to the horses as mine, although in most cases I’ve been the majority stakeholder alongside smaller shareholders, often agents or friends. Owners are allowed to register their horses as partnerships, and can choose a partnership name that allows the identity of the partners to be confidential, although the names are submitted to racing’s rulers, the BHA. It has been suggested that all owners’ names should be fully declared to the public, but I don’t agree. Providing they are correctly registered with the authorities, I don’t feel it is in racing’s interests to discourage ownership by people who prefer their affairs to be confidential.
When I bought Pevensey in the autumn of 2006, I devoted a huge amount of time to picking him from the 2,000 or so horses for sale at that time. That time spent was rewarded when he won at Royal Ascot the following year. He opened at 16-1 that day, a price that would surely not have been available had the bookmakers been gifted the information that he was my choice from all those horses the previous year. I make no apology for the fact that I have, on most occasions, kept information about horses I own out of the public domain. That hasn’t stopped the bookmakers endlessly speculating but, from what I’ve heard, they are wrong so often that I sometimes feel embarrassed for them. If they want to spend their time chasing such information I’ll be happy to organise some wild goose chases for them.
Buying horses is never easy, although I’ve been helped in my shopping by the flexibility of not needing to have a set number in training or a specific type, so I am able to focus on just finding the best value I can. Apart from the breeze-up sales, I rely on my own assessments of the form of a horse, or of its relatives if it has never raced. I only frequent British sales, although I did make one trip to Goffs in Ireland searching for yearlings with a couple of helpers. We returned empty-handed after I formed the impression that, on their own turf, the Irish vendors were perhaps a little too clever for me.
After some success with Pertemps FC in my comeback year, I bought Minivet after he finished second in a York claimer in October 1999. He had very sound form on the Flat, was rated 87, and it was a bit of a surprise that his owners let him take his chance in a claimer for the modest price of £22,000. Perhaps it was because he had a club foot, a defect that would put off many paddock judges. He made his jumps debut for me in a two-mile novice hurdle at Wetherby the next month, a race that turned out to be a little controversial. Tim Easterby reported that Minivet had schooled well and might be worth a small interest, but in the race jockey Lorcan Wyer gave the leaders a very large head start before finishing strongly in the closing stages. Having seen Minivet drift markedly in the betting, I was less than happy, but kept my own counsel.
I had a decent bet next time at Doncaster, when Minivet won a novice hurdle easily. He went from strength to strength that winter, winning four more times at Kelso, Musselburgh, Doncaster again and Ayr. I was enthralled by my new venture.
At the end of the year, I decided to try a number of new trainers, and William Haggas was one of those at the top of my list. William had earned a reputation for shrewdness and I had no hesitation in choosing him to train Great News, a four-year-old gelding I bought for £40,000 at the Newmarket sales. As usual, I pointed out that betting was a key concern in my ownership but that giving illicit instructions to jockeys wouldn’t be on the agenda. The trainer’s job was to tell me as accurately as possible when my horse was at the peak of his form. Together we would carefully choose our entries and, once a horse came into peak form, we’d fix a target.
Great News didn’t please William at all in the spring of 2000. He just didn’t show any sparkle. One of our decisions had been not to leave horses at home in their boxes if they were healthy. Most horses would recapture their form in due course if they were sound and genuine and, in the meantime, they would drop down the handicap if they weren’t winning. After three runs at a mile and three more at a mile and a quarter Great News had still not returned to form, but the races hadn’t been wasted as he’d been dropped 16lb to an attractive mark of 67. William felt that Great News was turning the corner and suggested we take a break to see if he could freshen the horse up to bring him back to somewhere near his best. It turned out to be worth the wait.
It was late August before William was sufficiently upbeat about Great News, and he felt there were suitable handicaps over both seven furlongs and a mile at the Ayr Western meeting in the middle of September. It’s the biggest Flat meeting of the year in Scotland, renowned for strong betting markets as well as plenty of after-hours entertainment. We picked out the seven-furlong handicap on the Friday.
In his final gallop, Great News finished alongside Courting, who won a Listed race at Yarmouth at long odds three days before Ayr. Gallops can be misleading but the signs were encouraging. I wanted to have a serious bet, as I didn’t see how Great News could be beaten if he was indeed back to form. Although afternoon betting markets are invariably much stronger, I wanted to get cracking in the morning. I wanted a double smash.
Friday’s Racing Post brought disappointing news on the Great News front. They had installed him as 7-2 favourite, although at least they had tipped against him. However, I guessed that Ladbrokes would have a big influence on the shaping of the market, as I’d noticed they often took a view about the Haggas horses. By then, I had a fairly good idea about the identity of the mole in the yard who might be betting with them. I discussed it with William as a matter of urgency and we were careful to take measures lest news of the gallop reached Ladbrokes and ruined the planned coup. Lo and behold, when the early prices came out, Ladbrokes had indeed taken a view and were top price of 11-2 about Great News, compared to the 9-2 available elsewhere. It seemed that their line of communication had suffered a temporary breakdown.
I took advantage by sending a wave of business across the industry, taking all prices from 11-2 down to 7-2. Ladbrokes seemed fairly convinced of their position and were still offering the biggest price at lunchtime. There were further heavy investments at 7-2 and 3-1 on the opening show, and the double smash was complete with an SP of 11-4. The race itself was less worrying than the preamble, with Great News always going smoothly and winning by a length and a quarter. I had won £126,526 from a stake of just under £30,000 – not a colossal sum for a double smash, but very satisfying considering the disappointing forecast price.
That was not the end of the week’s business. Great News was in the Ayrshire Handicap the following day – sponsored by Ladbrokes, no less – and that provided a further opportunity to relieve the sponsors and their competitors of some more money. Despite the step up in grade Great News opened a much shorter price the next day and, backed from 11-4 to 2-1, again won comfortably, this time netting me £43,463. Still basking in the memory of Grangeville landing a big gamble at the same meeting 12 months earlier, I drove home with two large trophies on the back seat of the car. I was certainly keen to return.
Dim Sums was another to hit the jackpot for me that year. I homed in on him after his victory in a nursery at Pontefract in July on his third start. He won off a mark of 79, far from the rating of a top horse, but I was really impressed by the way he won in a very fast time. I felt he could step up in grade and bought him privately from trainer David Barron.
Dim Sums ran his first race for me at Newmarket three weeks later. It was Frankie Dettori’s first day back in the saddle after his light aeroplane crashed at the course two months earlier, killing pilot Patrick Mackey. He was full of fun when he saw me in the paddock. We had met only once before, on a water-skiing boat in Dubai four years earlier, but he walked straight up to me and asked ‘Eh Pat, this your ‘orse?’ I talked him through my views on the draw – a lot more politely than I had with Kevin Darley at Newcastle the year before – as we were drawn in the middle, six of 12, and I wanted to race closer to the stands’ rail, where the fastest ground was.
I didn’t have a large bet as the race was a huge step up in grade. Frankie’s first ride back, Atlantis Prince, had been a hugely popular winner, and his fans were playing up their winnings on Dim Sums, his only other ride of the day. Dim Sums was quite headstrong coming out of the stalls, but he soon relaxed and sped home by a length and a half.
He gave us a bigger payday next time out when winning the £93,000 Redcar Two-Year-Old Trophy, going off a warm 6-4 favourite and never looking in much danger of defeat. The race provided us with a handy selling opportunity, as I had doubts as to how much Dim Sums would improve over the winter. Two big offers came in over the next ten days, one from Sheikh Mohammed’s agent John Ferguson – sadly not one of his multi-million-pound bids – and a slightly higher offer from America. We took the dollars and Dim Sums was away across the Atlantic for a tidy profit. It turned out to be the perfect time to sell, as he never recaptured his form.
All through that season, David’s mastery of the training of Dim Sums shone though. After his victory at Newmarket there had been time for two or three other runs before Redcar, but David felt that Dim Sums was not quite right and insisted he stayed at home. He brought him back to his peak for October, which is no mean feat when a horse has been on the go since March.
One attempted coup that went astray that year was an each-way gamble on Mary Jane, trained by Nigel Tinkler. Backed from 33-1 to 11-2, she was beaten only a couple of lengths but just lost out on the place money – and even fourth place would have netted a profit of around £50,000. Then there was the unreliable Threat, who failed to land a gamble at Haydock. Backed from 16-1 to 6-1, he missed out on a place by half a length. A week later, he was one of the market leaders in a competitive handicap at the Doncaster St Leger meeting and managed to win, but I had lost confidence in his attitude and wasn’t willing to invest on him at a top meeting.
Mr Pertemps, trained by Stuart Williams, was another near miss in 2000 when runner-up at Hamilton, backed from 10-1 to 3-1. We were disappointed with the price, though, as the horse had been backed at 25-1 in very light morning trading. Although I’ve suffered comparatively few leaks over the years, it can be very frustrating when it happens and I’ve been unable to identify the source. In this case, detection proved easy. Gavin Faulkner was Stuart’s stable jockey at the time, and although he was not riding at Hamilton he asked Stuart a few days after the race whether he could expect a present from the each-way bets, as the horse had been 25-1 in the morning. The morning price had not been reported anywhere and Faulkner rather gave the game away about his part in the leak.
However, the year ended on a high note when Inzacure, trained by Ralph Beckett, landed a gamble from 25-1 to 9-1 at Brighton. Inzacure was owned by Major Pooley and a few of his chums, although if I think really hard I can recall being involved in the betting action that day.
The Great News story was not so profitable in 2001. Held back by one or two problems, he had run only twice by September. Although he was not as well handicapped as before, we still had in mind another crack at the Ladbrokes Ayrshire Handicap. However, he didn’t work nearly so well in the run-up to that race and William told me that he would need a run to put him right.
At Ayr, Great News was forecast to be one of the market leaders, yet William didn’t really fancy him. Marnor, on the other hand, trained by Mick Easterby, was seriously fancied. He had tumbled down the ratings since joining Easterby and had run with promise a week earlier at Doncaster. I had quite a hefty bet on him and, needless to say, nothing on Great News. It was a perfect example of how horses can make fools of us all. Great News was never far away and stole the initiative over Marnor at a crucial stage, in the end holding on by three-quarters of a length. There was my horse, in the winner’s enclosure, and there was the one I’d had a decent bet on, standing next to him in the runner-up’s spot. Ah, life’s little ironies. I didn’t blame William, of course, as racing is far from an exact science and he had been spot-on about Great News throughout the previous two years.
I’d already had a much better day that month when Prince Cyrano, a £30,000 purchase, landed the Doncaster breeze-up sales race, held at Kempton, by five lengths. I missed the race, as I was keeping my mother company while my father underwent a triple heart bypass operation. It was an incredibly stressful period, but news of Prince Cyrano’s win was a welcome distraction and half an hour later the hospital called to report that everything had gone smoothly. Suddenly, we had two major causes for celebration. I’d asked Private Brearley to take the trophy straight to my parents’ house, as I planned to take it along when we visited my father in hospital the next day. Then word filtered back that the trophy from a £50,000 race was a tiny silver ashtray. Stand easy, Private Brearley.
Next stop for Prince Cyrano was Chantilly, for the Group 3 Prix d’Arenberg three days later, as Stuart felt he was the type to recover quickly and the race looked an average affair for a Group contest. We thought we’d found the perfect opportunity for some winning black type, but the local hope Dobby Road ran him out of it by a short neck. At this point I was keen to sell Prince Cyrano. The races at Chantilly and Kempton had not been strong and on pedigree I wasn’t convinced he would progress.
In a bid to enhance Prince Cyrano’s sale value, we threw him in at the deep end against his elders and betters in the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye. To be truthful, he had no chance whatsoever, but I hoped that if he raced on the quickest part of the track he might perform with sufficient credit to increase the prospects of a profitable sale. Sure enough, his finishing position of ninth of 19 in the top sprint of the late season added a few pounds to his price-tag, and he went on to make £120,000 at Newmarket sales that month.