GLUG, glug, glug goes the racing talent drain.
Anyone with even half an eye on the sport will be all too aware of the
worrying loss of British-trained horses abroad.
A couple of decades ago it was a trickle, but more and more it’s
become a steady flow of nice horses disappearing down the plughole.
It’s a pity British racing isn’t headquartered in my neck of the woods, where the drains are clogged and the roads flooded at the slightest hint of a drop of rain.
It’s no wonder we’ve had plenty of small fields in big races lately, given lots of improving youngsters are sold to Hong Kong or Down Under before they get a chance to progress through the ranks.
And it’s not just equine talent we are losing overseas. This week, Derby-winning jockey Richard Kingscote and weighing room pal David Probert said ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’ to Britain as they jetted off to join the Hong Kong gold rush.
Both men are stalwarts of the saddle in this country, but when a carrot is dangled to go and chase life-changing money in the Far East it’s hard to refuse.
It’s just another sad indictment of where we’re at, that two talented jocks have decided the grass is greener on the other side of the world.
Hong Kong used to be a place European riders would see out the twilight years of their career, but Kingscote and Probert are arguably at their peak and they join UK expats Andrea Atzeni and Harry Bentley in Asia.
The only barrier to an even bigger exodus is the limit on the number of riders who are granted licences out there.
We also learned this week shrewd husband and wife training team Daniel and Claire Kubler were swapping Berkshire for Bahrain.
They will oversee a string of horses owned by the Bahraini royal family on the tiny Persian Gulf island. Can you blame them?
They run a mid-sized yard in Lambourn and have long been on the cutting edge of using science and data to train and race their horses, with excellent results. But it’s tough to make it pay in the UK.
There are races in this country which are worth less now than they were 30 years ago, for goodness’ sake.
The Kublers would probably be the smartest cookies in the room at a
Mensa convention, but even a dummy could see this move is a no-brainer.
They might not train any big-name horses but they are undoubtedly a loss to the sport and it’s indicative of the strain many middle-to-lower tier yards are under.
In truth, there are lots of similarities between British racing and the
Premier League right now.
The traditional ‘Big Six’ keep getting bigger and spend huge sums while the other clubs walk a financial tightrope and have virtually no shot at bridging the gap.
Likewise in racing, the most powerful yards keep on growing, and
the bulk of the firepower is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
It’s not good for the overall health or competitiveness of the sport. I’ve long thought introducing a cap on the number of horses any one trainer can have, like in Japan and Hong Kong, would do wonders for our sport.
Alas, I think I’m in the minority and even if there was an appetite for it, it would likely be tucked away in the ‘too difficult’ file.
The Kubler’s aren’t the only ones who’ve upped sticks. Most, including Amy Murphy and Adam West, have moved to France in search of a better way of life and tastier prize-money.
With costs skyrocketing, fewer and fewer chances on the big days for many jockeys and underwhelming financial rewards, is it any wonder so many are saying au revoir?
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