Alphonse Le Grande and Jamie Powell (yellow) winning at Newmarket© Photo Healy Racing
When I see soccer clubs spending hundreds of millions on players, the amounts can certainly seem obscene, but there is an underlying logic to it. If the clubs are to compete at the highest level both domestically and in Europe they need the best players and the rewards for success can far outweigh the costs.
Similarly, the sums of money spent at Tattersalls Book One sale last week were jaw dropping, but a similar logic does apply. If you unearth a Classic winner it has the potential to repay its initial purchase price many times over at stud.
Obviously there are far more risks attached to these horse purchases as there is no prior form to go on. A star-studded catalogue page coupled with perfect confirmation is no guarantee that they will ever make the track or win a race, but I suppose the potential upside draws in the mega-rich in the belief that they will become even richer.
Far less logic generally applies to big money National Hunt purchases. Even the prolific Jonbon took four years of winning Grade One contests to finally recoup his purchase price of £570,000 (a record sales price at the time).
At least on the National Hunt side of the game the owners are under no illusions that it is a sport rather than a business that they are getting involved in. Even the most successful of them must see a negative balance sheet at the end of almost every year.
Hearing Nicky Henderson has a new recruit that cost a whopping €1.4million at the sales in France last week seemed totally bonkers by National Hunt standards until you realise that the horse, Palladium, a Group One winner of the German Derby, is still an entire and is more likely to be campaigned in staying races on the Flat next season than jumping hurdles, and most importantly his tackle will remain intact for a stud career down the line.
Henderson is not ruling out sending Palladium over hurdles at some stage, which is an intriguing prospect, but I certainly wouldn’t be taking the bookies’ offer of 14/1 for the Triumph Hurdle at this stage when he hasn’t even seen a hurdle, nevermind tried to jump one.
Sticking to money matters, I wonder what is going on with the prize money levels for the Newmarket Cesarewitch which was run last Saturday? The race has turned into an Irish-bonanza in recent seasons with Alphonse Le Grande becoming the sixth Irish-trained winner of the Heritage Handicap in the last seven years, but these Irish victories have coincided with a dramatic reduction in the prize money on offer for the race.
When Willie Mullins started the ball rolling with Low Sun in 2018 the prize fund for the race stood at £500,000.
The following year when he again won the race with Stratum the total prize money had fallen to £350,000.
When Great White Shark won in 2020 the prize money was down to £200,000 and this year’s renewal saw the purse drop again to £175,000.
Connections of Low Sun pocketed £307,250 when he won the race in 2018, this year’s winning connections will get just over £90,000.
You would automatically assume there is a direct correlation between prize money and the quality of the field assembled for these big races, but lowering the prize money has made no difference to the Irish interest in this race with half the assembled field travelling across the water to contest the Cesarewitch last weekend.
Jamie Powell’s use of the whip in Saturday’s race became the focal point in the aftermath, with Alphonse Le Grande now facing possible disqualification on Tuesday if it is deemed that Powell struck the horse ten times.
You would have to feel for Powell whose career has stalled this season with just six domestic winners and this victory was set to give him a great boost in confidence and had the potential to reignite his career.
Of course it is somewhat ironic that had the race taken place in Ireland, where half of the runners came from, there would have been no possibility of the race being taken off connections because of a breach of the whip rules by a jockey.
Overall I’m in favour of the idea that if a rider breaches the whip rules the potential sanctions should include the ultimate penalty of disqualification of the horse. But the British system of delaying these decisions until the ‘Whip Review Committee’ meets the following Tuesday is completely unsatisfactory.
Those defending the system put forward the argument that if these enquiries were held on the day of the race they would cause too much of a delay to proceedings, but I don’t agree.
Interference enquiries are often far more complex and nuanced and yet a decision is normally arrived at within ten to fifteen minutes. If either party deems that decision to be incorrect there is a well established appeals process.
The same could surely apply to these whip offences where the process for determining whether or not to disqualify the horse has been made incredibly simple. The rules regarding the disqualification of the horse don’t take into account the force used on each strike or whether or not the horse was given time to respond between strikes, “If the number of strikes (excluding those found to be clearly and unequivocally for safety purposes) is 4 or more above the permitted level” the horse is disqualified. This Rule has been worded in such a way that anyone that can count to ten (or 11 for jumps races) has the required skill set to make these decisions.
Changing the subject, it was sad to hear of the passing of trainer Billy Boyers last week. The 93-year-old was a trailblazer back in the 1970s and 80s when he trained many big race winners, including a Cheltenham Festival winner, from his base at Rosses Point in County Sligo.
Even nowadays it would be a fair feat to run a successful training operation from such a far-flung location, but 50 years ago it must have been next to impossible. There were no motorways in Ireland then and the road network took you through the middle of every town and village.
I can remember when the now straightforward trip southbound out of Dublin took you through Rathcoole, Kill, Naas, Newbridge and Kildare town. On a bank holiday Monday that final leg of a journey back from Limerick or Mallow races to Dublin could take a couple of bumper-to-bumper hours.
Billy Boyers must have spent endless hours in the horsebox during his heyday. May he rest in peace.
