A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE SKY THINKING.

​The beauty of having a website that receives very few visitors is that I can put forward radical and sometimes downright dumb ideas and receive little or no pushback or criticism from anyone. Occasionally, as proved by my letter in today’s edition of the Racing Post, if I think my idea worthy of discussion, I will go public with it. The suggestion I am to put forward here, though, will undoubtedly not appear within the pages of a national newspaper for fear of the ridicule that will come my way.
What I am about to propose, more for any discussion it might trigger than as a serious proposal that should be acted upon, is radical, perhaps naïve, with broad strokes of ignorance and veins of hopeless stupidity, tainting the good intention. Without any actual research, calculation of whether the idea is more costly than the present funding model, the idea came to me as an entirety when I read someone say something along the lines of there should be better prize money at the top level of the sport.
This confounded me, as it is the exact opposite approach to the method I would employ to rebuild the sport’s favour with the public. Horse racing in general is both a sport and an industry, with flat racing perhaps more an industry than a sport. Between the wars, for example, although the classics were, as they are nowadays, the domain of the super-rich, it was not unusual for butchers, bakers and any of the self-employed to own a racehorse or two, with farmers and small-holders breeding thoroughbreds to either race or take to the sales. We need to edge back to that sort of scenario. To this end the sport needs to embrace the aspiration that every owner should, if not make a profit from owning a racehorse, should have every opportunity to break-even.
Now remember, I have not committed myself to researching the financial ramifications of what I am about to suggest and there will be exceptions to the basic simplicity of my idea. But as a concept I believe it is a good starting place to begin the debate on how best to fund the sport.
What if every horse race, from selling race to Group 1, had exactly the same first prize money? At the very top end of the sport, the classics, for example, on the flat, the Grand National and the heritage championship races at the Cheltenham Festival, could be exempt from the constraint on prize money. Though I would put a cap on how much extra money would be allowed for such races. 
In a nutshell, my idea is that every race would be worth £30,000 to the winner, with prize money down to sixth place.
For this idea to succeed, as if it possibly could succeed, prize money must be allocated from a central funding mechanism, except where there is  sponsorship, of course.
This is daft, isn’t it? Or is it? If you calculate all the races run in this country, and yes, at every big meeting like Royal Ascot, York, Goodwood, for example, where first prize money is above £30,000, the accumulation of this money would make a large reservoir of funding for the sport. I believe, and correct me if this figure is wrong, but I believe a horse must win between £22 and £25,000 to allow its owner to break even. A first prize of £30,000, would allow a big opportunity for many more owners not to lose money, encouraging the pool of owners presently in the sport to have a second or third horse in training.
But the sport is kept afloat by major players whose ambition is to win Group and classic races, surely these owners will take their horses to countries with larger purses. This is, of course, the folly in this harebrain scheme of mine.
As I have already mentioned, the classics could have enhanced prize money, say up to £100,000, with other inducements and enticements added. If a jewellery company sponsored a classic, as an example, as De Beers once did, a selection of their products might be presented to the winning owners. If it were a champagne house …. Well, you get the picture. Where the big owners loose-out at the top-end they will gain at the lower-end as their lesser horses will have opportunities every time they run to pay for their keep.
As I always say, the Epsom Derby will have the same horses running whether the prize money to the winner was £100,000 or £1-million as the colt first past the line will be worth many millions as a stallion. Then there is the prestige in owning an Epsom Derby winner. What is the value of that accolade? 
If we could persuade a thousand new owners to the sport, intrigued and excited by the percentages being in their favour at actually making racing pay, would that be a good trade-off for the defection of the high-rollers, Coolmore, Juddmonte, Godolphin, etc, packing their bags and making their exit from these shores to centre their equine commercial activities on France or Ireland? That is my hope, anyway, for this fairer playing field. When the figures are loaded into the calculator it might be decided the money simply isn’t available to fund every race to the value of £30,000. Though it would be feasible if it was decided to fund the sport through some kind of ‘Tote Monopoly’. But that is a horse of a different feather.
£1-million races will never be looked upon kindly by the public. Such excessive purses reinforce the general belief that horse racing is the reserve of toffs, the mega-rich, sultans and sheikhs, the new aristocracy, the ruling classes of the world, when in reality it is very much a working-class sport underpinned by the fabulously wealthy. To engage with the public again, to revisit those days when the Epsom Derby held a mystique over the populace, we have to assure them that our sport is a sport for all, and the sporting aspect trumps the industry of the breeding sheds. If we could get close to all races, from sellers to Group races having the same level of prize-money, as ludicrous as that may sound at first hearing, the greater chance emerges for this sport to have a long and successful future as the present model is slowly but surely failing.