FORTY-FOUR YEARS AGO IT WAS A DIFFERENT WORLD.

​Everything is relative, of course. We live, at least in Great Britain, in a veritable paradise compared to the living conditions endured today in, for example, many areas of Syria or North Korea. Indeed our lives are more comfortable than were those of our forebears who lived workaday lives in this country during any period from the Middle Ages to the end of the Victorian era and, in some respects, beyond. Whether racing and those who attempt to earn a living from it are better off than in days of yore is a matter of judgement.
In 1974 Fred Winter was leading trainer having won 85 races worth £79,066. Forty-four years on and the majority of the races at the Cheltenham Festival alone will have a first prize far in excess of that season’s total. If Paul Nicholls or Nicky Henderson only fired in 85 winners in a season they might judge the season as poor. Incidentally, when Fred Winter won the Grand Nationals of 1965 and 1966 with Jay Trump and Anglo (and here is an interesting fact, formerly known as Flag of Convenience) first prize was £22,000.
In 1974 the top trainers would receive more applications for jobs than they had spare capacity, and lads would only look after 3 horses and ride out 2 lots. In 1974 stable employees were mainly male, with girls a rarity. Also assistant trainers were expected to work unpaid otherwise they would be deemed professional and be unable to ride as amateurs.
People rode without helmets in those days, of course, although by this period jockeys were taking the lead by schooling with their heads protected. To watch old footage of strings of horses wending their way from stable yards to the gallops at Newmarket or Epsom with every rider wearing on his head only a cloth cap is like glimpsing on a scene from a hundred and fifty years ago rather than the 1960’s and 70’s. We, or at least those of us from around that era, must have been pretty stupid as I remember when helmets became compulsory there was a chorus of wining and moaning about having ‘choice’ taken from us, and trainers, who had to bear the financial cost of this health and safety measure, trying to convince staff that they were not responsible for purchasing these helmets, only ensuring they were worn.
Trainers, of course, must always be attempting to keep costs down. Horses who chew their rugs or who scrape their bedding into a heap, contaminating clean wood shavings with the dirty, will never be favourites with a trainer working to very tight margins. And lads who leave expensive tack to be sodden with rain or chewed by one of their charges will also be thought of, and perhaps be spoken to, uncharitably.
In 1974 the best oats were £70 a ton. To rent a racing stables in Lambourn cost something like £200 a year. Gallop fees were £40 a year. Training fees were in the region of £28 per horse per week. Travelling expenses for a lad going racing was £1.50 a day. To rent a Telex machine to send in entries to Weatherbys – a thing of the distant past admittedly – could cost £200 a year to rent plus 4p a minute to use. I dare say though the actual cost of entries may have risen considerably, the actual process of entering is today simpler and much cheaper.
And all-weather gallops, swimming pools and horse-walkers were unheard of. As was the 40-hour week.
Although I was ignorant of the financial implications of running a racing stable in the 1970’s, and I was but a small and ineffectual cog struggling to come to terms with an environment that was completely at odds with my upbringing in a large city, when at evening stables the trainer and head lad would inspect every horse in turn, with grooming kit readied for inspection on top on the squared heap of straw bedding, a world that still mirrored the age before the first world war, I can still look fondly on those times and wish I could revisit them and make a better fist of things than I actually achieved.
Relative, though, is the key word. £79,000 in 1974 equates to £774,400 in today’s money, and £28 to £274. £1.50 in 1974 equates to £14.70 now and £40 to £352.
Of course I cannot compare then with now. Only a trainer or an owner can make the comparison. Though expensive then would equal expensive now.
The Grand National to be run on April 14th this year has £1.million in prize money. The first prize won by Jay Trump and Anglo equates today to £215,000. A lot of dosh then, a lot of dosh now. As I said, everything is relative.