What Britain can learn from the French in fight for horse racing’s future

The sport could do worse than follow lead of our Gallic neighbours, who are quick to protest when government threatens their livelihoods

Back in September, I suggested that “in spite of the Prime Minister’s appearance at Doncaster [for the St Leger] on Saturday, I am assured … that this government currently has no interest in helping horse racing”.But I had no idea as to the exact level of carnage it was going to inflict on small rural businesses, many of which are related to racing, at its first opportunity.The abolition of Agricultural Property Relief and Business Property Relief will hit stud farms and training yards hard. This will result in reduced investment and growth and reduced tax receipts for the Government from both agriculture and racing.
But it does not care. This is a government driven by ideological score-settling, not fiscal nous. Its agenda is also totally disingenuous as far as the effects that the budget will have on the prospects of the rural workforce.
Also incredibly damaging for the racing industry will be the raising of employers’ National Insurance contributions from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent, with the threshold at which it starts reduced to £5,000 from £9,100. That tax grab will very quickly lead to less rural employment and wage stagnation. The NI employment credit for businesses has risen from £5,000 to £10,500, but any business that employs more than seven people will be worse off.Racing stables are very labour intensive, so how are they going to balance their books, given that they are already working on very tight margins and their other costs are going up?They will have to either reduce the number of workers they employ – which means the horses are less well-looked after – or freeze wages, which is the same as cutting them when inflation is taken into account.
They could also increase the training fees they charge horse owners, but for the majority of yards that means they will lose horses, which in turn leads to less employment.There are, of course, alternative solutions. Trainers and studs could employ fewer full-time staff, and more part-timers, which again reduces the amount of tax the Government receives from its “growth” Budget.
Or, if they are really struggling to make ends meet, they could just pay “casual labour” cash, which really screws up the Government’s numbers. That is what the Budget will force small businesses to do.
There is absolutely no way the French would take a basin-full like this lying down. Indeed, their racing industry marched through Paris last week. But British racing does not have decisive leadership, so trainers and stud farms in this country will have to hitch their wagons to the farmers.
Protestors may well take a lesson from the French farmers’ playbook, and indeed our own Poll Tax rioters, if they are serious about getting the Government to change its mind.
They may conclude that peaceful demonstrations do not frighten governments. Take the Countryside Alliance marches, for example. What a waste of time and effort they were. Worse than useless.
The probability is, however, that the farming and racing industries will do what the British always do. Obey the law and accept what is coming their way. Unlike the French, who would be spraying every Labour MP’s office with a good dose of horse s— by now.
The life of Christopher Sweeting will be remembered at All Saints Church, Churchill, on Monday afternoon. Chris was a proper National Hunt man – or should I say Yorkshire man.After playing rugby for Rosslyn Park, he settled down to farming in the Cotswolds in the 1960s. But his real passion was for horses, so he put Conduit Farm on the map as a stud farm when he bought Sunyboy from the Queen Mother, who continued to visit him with her grandson, now the King, who rode him around the farm.
Chris and his son Simon took over Overbury Stud in 2000 and established Kayf Tara there, who became one of the greatest National Hunt stallions to ever stand in this country, at a time when Ireland had pretty well choked the life out of breeding steeplechasers in the UK.
The fact that Chris worked with his stud groom Stephen Wright for more than 50 years is testament to what a thoroughly decent man he was, even if he did have very strong opinions. They were frequently expressed on the pages of The Sporting Life, after they had been deciphered by Alastair Down (he had appalling handwriting).But behind the facade of a bombastic Yorkshireman was a man of huge kindness and patience. Among others, he mentored myself and David Loder, now one of Sheikh Mohammed’s right-hand men, when we were complete muppets.And he will have taken huge pleasure in training all three of his children – Rupert, Simon and Lucinda – to win point-to-points on Border Sun, owned by Peter Deal.Peter, who also owned Champion Hurdle winner Make A Stand, would have considered Chris to have been a guiding light, too.
Chris was one of the great men of National Hunt racing.